[2607] in loco qui dicitur sandtun. et in eodem loco sali coquenda, &c.
[2608] termini vero terrae illius hec sunt. ab oriente terra regis. ab austro fluvius qui dicitur limenaee. ab occidente et in septentrione hudan fleot.
[2609] Lewin (Archaeologia, xl, 1866, pp. 373-4) admits that the earlier of the two charters mentioned in the text ‘appeared at first sight to negative the hypothesis that the marsh was under cultivation in the time of the Romans’: but he adds that he consulted Elliott, who removed his doubts in the following letter:—‘The grant refers to Romney and not to Lymne. The boundaries will do for Romney, but not for Lymne. If at Lymne, the salt-pans must have been in the marsh, and then on the east, south, and west would have been the sea, and on the north Lymne Hill. At Romney ... the description agrees. Sandtun would be the Sand hills, called the Warren, to the east of Romney, and the boundaries of the land would be as stated, viz.:—the King’s land on the east would be the territory to the east, about 100 acres, which was vested in the Crown until the reign of Elizabeth, when it was granted to Romney Corporation; the river on the south would be the Limen.... Hudanfleot, referred to as on the north and west, would be the fleet which may still be traced there, though it has lost its name,’ &c. Lewin (The Invasion of Britain, &c., 1862, p. lvi) remarks that in the neighbourhood of Romney ‘are still pools of stagnant water ... called Fleets’. As, however, the mouth of the Limen, in A.D. 893, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see p. 541, supra) was at Appledore, we must assume that the Limen mentioned in the charter was simply the body of water conducted into the channel enclosed within the embankments of the Rhee Wall.
That ‘the marsh was under cultivation [or, at all events, occupation] in the time of the Romans’, is not a ‘hypothesis’ at all: it is a fact attested by the discovery of numerous Roman remains. See p. 551, infra.
Professor Montagu Burrows (The Cinque Ports, p. 12) speaks of ‘Hudanfleot, afterwards called West Hythe’, and says (ib., p. 50) that ‘Hudanfleot’ means ‘the haven of the estuary’. Needless to say, he gives no authority; and how ‘the haven of the estuary’ could have been both ‘on the west and on the north’ of ‘the piece of land’ referred to in the charters he does not explain.
[2610] See pp. 545-6, infra.
[2611] See Roach Smith, Report on Excavations ... at Lymne, pp. 39-40.
[2612] Ant. of Richborough, &c., pp. 236, 239. See also J. M. Kemble, Codex diplo. aevi Saxonici, i, 103, No. LXXXVI. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ed. Thorpe, ii, 71, s.a. DCCC.XCIV) mentions ‘the great army ... which had before sat at the mouth of the Limen, at Appledore’.
[2613] Roach Smith, Report on Excavations ... at Lymne, p. 41.
[2614] The Invasion of Britain, &c., 1862, p. lxiii; Archaeologia, xl, 1866, p. 369. I have remarked elsewhere (pp. 609, and 622-3) on Lewin’s inconsistencies. In his final utterance on the subject of Romney Marsh (Archaeologia, xl) he outdoes himself. On page 369 he says that the mouth of the Limen was at Appledore: on page 370 he says that ‘the river Limen must have flowed along the foot of the hills, and have discharged itself at Lymne’.