MAP OF
ROMNEY MARSH PROPER
and
the parts adjacent
Reproduced from the map facing page liii of T. Lewin’s “Invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar,” 2nd. Edit. Showing what lands would have been covered by the sea at high water (medium spring tides) before the construction of the Rhee Wall. The figures denote the depth in feet, according to levels taken by J. Elliott, of the present surface below the high-water mark of Spring Tides.
ROMNEYMARSH
as (according to T. Lewin’s final view)
It was certainly in the
TIME OF THE SAXONS
probably in the
TIME OF THE ROMANS
and perhaps in the
TIME OF THE BRITONS
VI. BETWEEN DOVER AND SANDGATE
During the last three centuries, at all events, the coast between Sandgate and Dover has undergone considerable changes. Large quantities of stone have been removed from the Folkestone cliffs; and landslips have occurred at Shakespeare’s Cliff, between Folkestone and Sandgate, and behind East Wear Bay.[2550] It would be useless, however, for our purpose, to describe these changes in detail; for they do not affect the topographical questions that belong to the history of Caesar’s invasions of Britain. Excepting the disappearance of the little haven that once existed at Folkestone, the general character of this section of the coast was much the same in 55 B.C. as to-day. It may be, however, that the aspect of the high ground above East Wear Bay was different. Between the cliffs and the heights which rise about a quarter of a mile to the north of them there is a wild and broken plateau, called the Warren, through which the railway runs. Referring to this, William Phillips, a geologist of some repute, wrote in 1821, ‘The cliff, bounding this ruin towards the sea, is, from its position, not in situ; and it is equally clear that the enormous masses of which it is composed, have fallen forward [probably by ‘repeated falls’] from near the summit of the cliff in situ.’[2551] When these convulsions began to transform the landscape cannot, as far as I know, be ascertained.
VII. ROMNEY MARSH
Between Hythe and Dungeness, on the other hand, there has been complete transformation. There, within the brief span of historical time, wind, tide, and river, and finally the labour of man, have wrought changes as remarkable as those that in other regions required the lapse of ages which the imagination fails to conceive. The antiquary who walks from Westenhanger Station to the brow of Lympne Hill, and looks out over the vast field of shingle that extends seaward, and, on his left, towards Hythe, and then over the broad level of the marsh that stretches away on his right between the Wealden upland and Dymchurch Wall, will easily picture to himself the scene that once was there.
1. Before we attempt to construct a map which may represent the coast-line between Sandgate and Dungeness, as it was in the time of Caesar, it will be well to state those relevant facts which are accepted by all geographers. There was a time when the area of Romney Marsh was covered by a bay. At a later epoch the marsh was fringed by a bar of shingle, which extended from Winchelsea to a point nearly opposite Shorncliffe. Between West Hythe and Shorncliffe streams flowed down from the hills, gradually forced an opening in the shingle opposite Hythe, through which the sea entered, and thus formed Hythe harbour, which, after remaining open for many centuries, was finally choked up about 300 years ago. For some time after the marsh became habitable the shingle protected it from the sea on the south, but gradually was so diminished that it became necessary to construct a sea wall. The river Rother debouched at some point within the area of Romney Marsh. During the Roman occupation of Britain there was a harbour called the Portus Lemanis, which has been located by one writer at Romney and by others at Lympne, while some have identified it with Hythe Haven. West of West Hythe Oaks, the marsh ‘is a rich mould ... while all to the east, as far as Sandgate, is (with the exception of a narrow strip to the south and east of Hythe, between the sea-beach and the hills) one vast bed of shingle’.[2552]
2. The whole of Romney Marsh, properly so called,[2553] is even now below the level of high water at spring tides. The hills which form its northern boundary have themselves changed since the time when the waves broke against their base. In the course of ages they have lost their original sharpness of outline, and, as we learn from the geologist who has described the formation of the Weald, have been ‘worn down into undulating ground’;[2554] and nearly 200 years ago a local observer described how, after an unusually wet season, Lympne Hill had been completely transformed, in a single night, by a landslip.[2555] But these changes are insignificant in comparison with that by which the old Bay of Appledore has become a fertile pasture. Of what material is this land composed? According to the late Thomas Lewin, it is ‘absolutely and exclusively a sea deposit’; and, in proof of this assertion, he pointed to ‘the marine shells which pervade the whole mass’.[2556] But it needs little acumen to see that the presence of marine shells in the marsh does not justify Lewin in using the words ‘absolutely and exclusively’; and the late Colonel George Greenwood maintained that the marsh had been formed by material brought down from the Weald by ‘the aqueous erosion of the Rother’.[2557] As a matter of fact, it was formed by the combined action of river and sea.[2558] But unless and until a series of borings are systematically made, it will be impossible to describe the recent strata with precision.[2559]
According to Topley, ‘The cause of the original formation of Romney Marsh is altogether unknown. It is usually attributed to “the meeting of the tides”; but as this takes place over a rather wide area, and as shingle beaches and alluvial flats occur where no tides meet, the explanation is not altogether satisfactory.’[2560] The well-known geologist, F. Drew, explains that as soon as the bay had become so shallow from the accumulation of silt that its bed was exposed at low water, the sediment carried down by the Rother began to be deposited on the surface. Like Topley, he confesses that how the silt had accumulated is ‘not quite clear’; and he thinks that ‘the newly formed surface’ may have been ‘actually upheaved by oscillation of level, forming a plain well raised above the level of the sea’,[2561] which, however, before the historic period, must have suffered a subsidence.[2562] This supposition was based upon the fact that trees are found near Appledore a few feet below the surface, which, if they are in situ, must have grown at a time when the marsh was above the level of the sea, and were perhaps contemporaneous with the submerged forests of Devonshire and Cornwall.[2563] Some authorities, however, as we shall presently see, hold[2564] that they were drifted into their present position.