Romney Marsh is a sparsely inhabited marsh location in the regions of Kent as well as East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers concerning 100 square miles (260 km2). A selecting ward in the exact same name exists. This ward had a population of 2,358 at the 2011 census. The Romney Marsh has actually been progressively built up over the centuries. The most significant feature of the Marsh is the Rhee Wall (Rhee is a word for river), creating a noticeable ridge. This function was expanded as a river in three phases from Appledore to New Romney in the 13th century. Sluices controlled the circulation of water, which was after that launched to purge silt from the harbour at New Romney. Eventually, the fight was lost; the harbour silted up and New Romney decreased in relevance. The Rhee kept part of the old port open up until the 15th century. The wall surface at Dymchurch was constructed around the very same time; storms had breached the roof shingles barrier, which had safeguarded it until that time. It is a typical mistaken belief that both these structures were constructed by the Romans. In 1250 as well as in the following years, a series of storms broke through the coastal tile banks, swamping considerable locations and returning it to marsh, and ruining the harbour at New Romney. In 1287 water destroyed the port town of Old Winchelsea (currently located some 2 mi (3 km) out in Rye bay), which had been under threat from the sea because at the very least 1236. Winchelsea, the third biggest port in England and a significant importer of red wine, was relocated on higher land, with a harbour containing 82 wharfs. Those exact same tornados, nonetheless, assisted to accumulate a lot more roof shingles: such coastlines currently ran along virtually the whole seaward side of the marshland. By the 14th century, a lot of the Walland and Denge Marshes had been recovered by "innings", the process of regurgitating an embankment around the sea-marsh as well as using the low-tide to let it run dry using one-way drains established into the new seawall, running off into a network of dykes called locally "drains" in 1462, the Romney Marsh Corporation was established to install drainage as well as sea supports for the marsh, which it remained to develop right into the 16th century. By the 16th century, the program of the Rother had actually been changed to its channel today; most of the remainder of the location had currently been reclaimed from the sea. The shingle continues to be transferred. Therefore, all the original Cinque Ports of the Marsh are now far from the sea. Dungeness Point is still being added to: although (especially near Dungeness and also Hythe) a day-to-day operation is in area to respond to the reshaping of the tile banks, using watercrafts to dig up as well as move the drifting shingle. The Marsh became the building of the Priory of Canterbury in the 9th century, that provided the initial occupancy on the land to a guy called Baldwin, sometime in between 1152 and also 1167, for "as much land as Baldwin himself can enclose as well as drain versus the sea"; Baldwin's Sewage system (water drainage ditch) remains in operation. The marsh has actually given that become covered by a thick network of water drainage ditches and once supported large farming areas. These watercourses are maintained and also managed for lasting water levels by the Romney Marsh Area Internal Drainage Board. Romney Marsh adjoins the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is less established than lots of other locations in Kent as well as Sussex. The decrease in lamb rates implied that also the local supply (offered around the globe for reproducing for over 2 centuries) ended up being unsustainable. Turfing had actually always been a minimal method due to the meadow kept short by the sheep raised upon it, yet ranches are increasing in size to make up for the decrease in sustainable livestock farming. Some view this as unsustainable because of the damage to dirt ecology of the Marsh. The only other choice, given that 1946, has actually been for farmers to turn to cultivable farming, altering the landscape from a patchwork of little family members farms to a few comprehensive arable manufacturing systems.