Romney Marsh is a sparsely booming marsh area in the areas of Kent and also East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers concerning 100 square miles (260 km2). An electoral 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 gradually developed over the centuries. One of the most significant attribute of the Marsh is the Rhee Wall (Rhee is a word for river), forming a popular ridge. This attribute was prolonged as a waterway in 3 stages from Appledore to New Romney in the 13th century. Sluices controlled the flow of water, which was then released to purge silt from the harbour at New Romney. Inevitably, the battle was lost; the harbour silted up and New Romney declined in importance. The Rhee maintained part of the old port open till the 15th century. The wall surface at Dymchurch was built around the very same time; storms had breached the tile obstacle, which had secured it till that time. It is a common misconception that both these structures were developed by the Romans. In 1250 as well as in the following years, a series of violent storms broke through the coastal shingle banks, flooding substantial locations and returning it to marsh, and damaging the harbour at New Romney. In 1287 water ruined the port community of Old Winchelsea (now found some 2 mi (3 kilometres) out in Rye bay), which had been under threat from the sea considering that a minimum of 1236. Winchelsea, the 3rd largest port in England as well as a significant importer of white wine, was transferred on greater land, with a harbour containing 82 jetties. Those very same tornados, however, aided to develop extra shingle: such coastlines now left virtually the entire seaward side of the marshland. By the 14th century, much of the Walland and Denge Marshes had been recovered by "innings", the procedure of throwing up an embankment around the sea-marsh as well as using the low-tide to allow it run dry through one-way drains pipes set into the new seawall, escaping right into a network of dykes called locally "drains" in 1462, the Romney Marsh Corporation was developed to install drain and also sea protections for the marsh, which it remained to construct right into the 16th century. By the 16th century, the course of the Rother had been altered to its channel today; most of the remainder of the area had now been redeemed from the sea. The shingle continues to be deposited. Because of this, all the initial Cinque Ports of the Marsh are currently much from the sea. Dungeness Point is still being added to: although (especially near Dungeness and Hythe) a daily operation is in place to respond to the improving of the roof shingles banks, using watercrafts to dig up as well as move the drifting tile. The Marsh came to be the home of the Priory of Canterbury in the 9th century, that provided the very first tenancy on the land to a guy called Baldwin, sometime in between 1152 as well as 1167, for "as much land as Baldwin himself can enclose as well as drain against the sea"; Baldwin's Drain (drainage ditch) stays in use. The marsh has actually given that come to be covered by a thick network of drainage ditches as well as when supported big farming communities. These watercourses are kept and also handled 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 less established than many various other locations in Kent as well as Sussex. The decline in sheep prices meant that also the regional supply (marketed around the world for breeding for over two centuries) became unsustainable. Turfing had always been a lower technique due to the grassland maintained short by the sheep reared upon it, but farms are enhancing in dimension to compensate for the decline in lasting livestock farming. Some sight this as unsustainable as a result of the damage to soil ecology of the Marsh. The only other choice, since 1946, has actually been for farmers to count on cultivatable farming, altering the landscape from a jumble of little household ranches to a few substantial cultivable manufacturing systems.