Romney Marsh is a sparsely inhabited marsh location in the counties of Kent as well as East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers regarding 100 square miles (260 km2). An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward had a population of 2,358 at the 2011 census. The Romney Marsh has been slowly built up over the centuries. One of the most substantial feature of the Marsh is the Rhee Wall (Rhee is a word for river), forming a noticeable ridge. This function was prolonged as a river in 3 phases from Appledore to New Romney in the 13th century. Sluices managed the flow of water, which was after that released to purge silt from the harbour at New Romney. Ultimately, the battle was shed; the harbour silted up and New Romney declined in importance. The Rhee kept part of the old port open till the 15th century. The wall at Dymchurch was developed around the exact same time; storms had actually breached the tile obstacle, which had actually secured it till that time. It is a common false impression that both these structures were constructed by the Romans. In 1250 and also in the adhering to years, a series of violent storms appeared the seaside roof shingles banks, flooding considerable areas and also returning it to marsh, and also damaging the harbour at New Romney. In 1287 water destroyed the port community of Old Winchelsea (currently found some 2 mi (3 km) out in Rye bay), which had actually been under threat from the sea considering that at the very least 1236. Winchelsea, the 3rd largest port in England as well as a significant importer of wine, was relocated on greater land, with a harbour including 82 wharfs. Those exact same storms, nevertheless, helped to accumulate a lot more tile: such coastlines currently ran along practically the entire seaward side of the marshland. By the 14th century, a lot of the Walland and Denge Marshes had been redeemed by "innings", the procedure of vomitting an embankment around the sea-marsh and using the low-tide to allow it run dry by means of one-way drains pipes established right into the new seawall, running off into a network of dykes called locally "sewage systems" in 1462, the Romney Marsh Corporation was developed to set up water drainage as well as sea protections for the marsh, which it continued to develop right into the 16th century. By the 16th century, the program of the Rother had been altered to its channel today; a lot of the rest of the location had now been redeemed from the sea. The shingle remains to be transferred. Therefore, all the original Cinque Ports of the Marsh are currently much from the sea. Dungeness Point is still being added to: although (specifically near Dungeness and also Hythe) an everyday operation remains in place to counter the improving of the roof shingles financial institutions, using watercrafts to dig up and relocate the drifting shingle. The Marsh came to be the building of the Priory of Canterbury in the 9th century, that gave the initial tenancy on the land to a guy called Baldwin, sometime between 1152 as well as 1167, for "as much land as Baldwin himself can confine and also drain against the sea"; Baldwin's Drain (water drainage ditch) remains being used. The marsh has actually since come to be covered by a thick network of drain ditches and also when supported huge farming communities. These gutters are maintained as well as managed for sustainable water levels by the Romney Marsh Area Internal Drainage Board. Romney Marsh adjoins the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is much less developed than numerous various other areas in Kent and Sussex. The decline in sheep costs implied that even the local stock (marketed all over the world for reproducing for over 2 centuries) ended up being unsustainable. Turfing had constantly been a minimal technique as a result of the grassland maintained short by the lamb reared upon it, however farms are increasing in size to make up for the decrease in lasting livestock farming. Some sight this as unsustainable because of the damages to dirt ecology of the Marsh. The only other choice, because 1946, has been for farmers to rely on cultivatable farming, changing the landscape from a jumble of small family ranches to a couple of comprehensive cultivatable production units.