A résumé of the Romney Marsh Workshop held in Tenterden

... the first Romney Marsh Workshop, held on Saturday 20th October 1984 with Hugh Roberts in the chair, was attended by some 60 people. Each of the five talks was followed by a wide~ranging discussion.

Jill Eddison reflected that much of the historical information generally available is derived from Leland, Camden and Dugdale, who wrote some 300 years after the last major marine inundation during which half the present land was tidal marsh, Old Winchelsea was lost and New Romney inundated, All conclusions which were drawn prior to the publication of the Soil Survey Memoir and map in 1968 need to be checked carefully against that. Geological evidence shows that movement of the shingle barrier beaches established three marsh inlets in turn: upon these the principal ports - Hythe, New Romney, and Winchelsea and Rye were founded. But the course of the Rother before 1250 is not yet known.

Hugh Roberts presented "A place called Smale Hyde', prepared jointly with Judith Roscoe. The growth of the port really began after the construction in c. 1336 of the Knelle Dam, which diverted the main channel of the Rother round the north of the Isle of Oxney, providing sufficient depth of water for the launching of the many sea-going ships known to have been built there. A 15th-century record speaks of ‘a place ... where the.King's highway is interrupted’ by a wide river, but no description survives of the centre. From wills, inventories and official records a picture is emerging of shops supplying silks and saffron, sugar and spices. The original river trade was in timber and firewood, followed by wool and cloth and also iron. From the 16th century the demand for larger ships and the turning of the Rother back to the south of Oxney led to the decline of Smallhythe, offset by the growth in agricultural prosperity of the parish of Tenterden as a whole.

Eleanor Vollans discussed the Port of Romney and the lower Rother. The origins of the Cinque Port Liberty of Romney, and the demarkation of its boundaries, are bound up with the history of the Marsh. The early account books of the New Romney Corporation can be used to illustrate the nature of the links between Romney, Snargate and Appledore c. 1380 ¢. 1500. In the thirteenth century, a branch of the Rother flowed out to the sea past Romney, and the channel known as the Ree (Rhee) formed an artificial course between Snargate and the harbour of Romney. The well-known entry in the Calendar of the Patent Rolls (1258) shows that sluices were planned to control the flow of river water and to assist shipping. The cost of keeping these sluices in operation and of checking silting in the haven became heavy. Between 1410 and 1415 a sluice known as the Great Sluice was made under Dutch guidance, and a new harbour dug. The Ree itself was then allowed to dry up. There is, however, some evidence that some other waterway, open to shipping, led from Appledore to New Romney in the fifteenth century.

Beryl Campbell described her current research in which she aims to establish how and by whom Elizabethan Lydd was governed, Town, parish, sewer:and manorial administration were closely inter-connected but not concurrent -— and clearly the jstudy must include the other bodies as well as the baliff and jurats of the town. The problems include difficulty in defining the mature and limits of the jurisdictions. In particular, whether the liberty included Broomhill, Dengemarsh and Orwelstone, which were in dispute between New Romney and Lydd, and whether the legal jurisdiction of the manor of Aldington included other manors as well.

Tim Tatton-Brown spoke of the archaeology of the Marsh, but emphasized that it is essential to consider the evidence from all possible subjects and aspects together, since the sedimentary sequence and the topographical features had been built up by a combination of natural processes influenced variously by man's activities. He outlined the potential value of studies of peat and the sediments and the mass of documentary material, as well as of isolated archaeological and settlement sites. Professor Cunliffe was the first archaeologist to attempt, in 1980, a Preliminary Statement on the Evolution of the Marsh, combining the geological, archaeological and historical evidence. We should go forward on those lines.

[fg]png|Christopher Saxton 1575|[/fg]

Short Bibliography

Cooper, W.D. (1850) History of Winchelsea. John Russell Smith. London.

Cunliffe, B.W. (1980) The Roman fort at Lympne, Kent, 1976-8. Britannia XI, 227-288.

Cunliffe, B.W. (1980) The Evolution of Romney Marsh: a preliminary statement. in Archaeology and Coastal Change, ed. F.H. Thompson, Society of Antiquaries, 37-55.

Eddison, J. (1983) The Barrier Beaches between Fairlight and Hythe. Geographical Journal, 149, 39-53.

Eddison, J. (1983) The Reclamation of Romney Marsh: some aspects reconsidered. Arch. Cant. XCIX, 47-58.

Eddison, J. (1983) An intensive ditching system in the Wicks, south-west of Lydd. Arch. Cant. XCIX, 273-276.

Green, R.D. (1968) The Soils of Romney Marsh. Soil Survey Memoir No. 4.

Holloway, W. (1849) The History of Romney Marsh. John Russell Smith. London.

Parkin, E.W. (1973) The ancient buildings of New Romney. Arch. Cant. LXXXVIII, 117-128.

Philp, B.J, (1982) Romney Marsh and the Roman Fort at Lympne. Kent Archaeological Review, 68, 175-191.

Philp, B.J. and Willson, J. (1984) Roman Site at Scotney Court, Lydd. Kent Archaeological Review, 77, 156-161.

Teichman-Derville, M. (1936) The Level and Liberty of Romney Marsh. Headley Brothers, Ashford.