The most spectacular man-made constructions and natural creations of Romney Marsh.

1: Royal Military Canal

It took 1500 men three years to dig this 28 mile, 19 metre wide and 3 metre deep canal. Reaching around the Northern edge of Romney Marsh from Hythe to just near Rye, the canal was designed as a military defense against Napoleon in 1804 but never saw action.

Costing a staggering £234,000, the defeat of Napoleon's fleet at Trafalga meant it never saw military action.

2: Dungeness Point

UK’s largest shingle structure and most diverse and most extensive examples of stable vegetated shingle in Europe, Dungeness is a series of shingle ridges built up over thousands of years and is a now unique natural habitat, nature reserve and home to many protected species.

Read more...

3: The Dymchurch Wall

A testament to the effort over adversity, the Dymchurch Wall is thought to date back to the first millennium when, desperate to protect valuable farm land from flooding, Romans and locals constructed a wall along the coast to keep out the sea.

Maintained to this day, the Dymchurch wall, is 20 feet high, 30 feet wide and stretches for 3 miles. Originally it was constructed of thorn bushes which locals were obligated to grow for use on the wall. The Dymchurch Wall is referenced in Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill.

4: Lost and Abandoned Villages

The Romney Marshes are home to 10 formerly thriving villages and hamlets that were abandoned in the middle ages following the ravages of black-death and malaria. In many cases, all that remains are a piles of stones or monument; in others church remains can be seen. All add to the strange, peaceful, character of the Marshes however. Read more...

5: Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway

The vision of the creator of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway is a fully operational railway shrunk to one third of normal size.

Running 13 miles from Dungeness to Hythe, the railway features 14 engines running at up to 25 miles an hour on 15" wide track. Read more...

6: Lookers Huts

Isolated, abandoned and a legacy of now lost farming traditions, lookers huts were small huts where Lookers - shepherds who wandered across the Marshes tendering to flocks of sheep - shettled over night and during fierce storms.

At one time there were an estimated 350 huts scattered across the Marshes; now just a few remain signals to lost time. Read more...

7: Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm

Controversial but undeniably now a major feature of Romney Marsh, the wind farm at Little Cheyne Court near Rye, Camber and Lydd will eventually see 26 huge wind turbines producing enough electricity to meet the energy needs of 32,000 local homes.

Each turbine will tower above all other objects (natural and otherwise) and are visible from across the Marshes and create a formiddle obsticle to migrating birds from the nearby RSPB nature reserves. Read more...

Last update: 09-11-2008 04:12