45 



Elliot, published in 1852, an ideal map is given of the ancient 

 Romney Marsh. .Mr. Furley read a jiaper on the same subject 

 at the last meeting of the Kent Archaiological Society. In 

 Mr. Elliot's plan, he presumes the great sea-wall from Romney 

 to Appledore to have been a Roman erection, at least so 

 I read his map ; and the present Rother probably had its chief 

 exit at Romney. However this may be, we know that the 

 change in the direction of the sea currents has had the effect of 

 quite altering liie coast-line, cutting back and removing an 

 ancient shingle bank, and destroying the town of Winchelsea, 

 in the reign of Edward I. It must be remembered that a great 

 part of Romney Marsh is at the present time below high water- 

 mark, and weie it not for the shingle and sea defences it would 

 be flooded at every high tide ; the same remark applies to a 

 great portion of the marshes at St. Nicholas in Thanet, and the 

 valley of the Stour. 



If we now trace the historical data relating to the Stour and 

 Rother valleys, we shall find various facts showing the rate at 

 which they have been recovered fro:ri the waters that once 

 flowed over them. 



I propose to consider, in the first place, the Stour valley. The 

 River Stour takes its rise from two sources — one the chalk hills 

 near Hythe, at Postling Church, where the river thence flows to- 

 Ashford ; another branch there joining it from the hills at 

 Lenham, and from thence it flows through Canterbury and for- 

 merly entered the estuary of the Wantsum at Stourmouth, but 

 now follows the eastern valley and, turning at right angles near 

 Sarre. flows through the Minster marshes to Richborough and 

 thence to Sandwich, where it is again deflected, and, flowing 

 eastward of Stonar. finds its way out at Pegwell Bay. It is 

 almost certain that the Stour was navigable to Canterbury in 

 early times, though much reliance cannot be placed on 

 the statement of Somner* that this circumstance is cor- 

 roborated by the finding of bones and teeth at Charthani 

 about 17 feet deep, and supposed to be those of an hippopota- 

 mus, or river-horse ; or from the circumstance " that at Westbere 

 there were found, on sinking a well at a very great depth, 

 oysters and other like shells, together with an iron anchor 

 sound and unimpaired," and the same being told of another 

 anchor dug up at Browndown, above Canterbury westward. It 

 is necessary to guard against the usual inferences that have 

 been repeatedly quoted, because in those days Geology was 

 little known ; and all fossil shells, such as those we now find in 

 Thanet and Woolwich beds in this neighbourhood, were con- 

 sidered as evidence of the presence of the sea in recent times.-); 

 With regard to the anchor, it was probably dipped at the bottom 

 of a well, where grappel-irons are often found now — if indeed 



* Ports and Forts in Kent. Wm. Somner, 1698. 

 t Battely's .Somner, Chartham news, p. 1 88. 



