CHAP. I. TIIK EMBANKMENT OF THE THAMKS. 9 



and cml>;mkments were extended southward as far as 

 New Romney, where an accumulation of beach took 

 place, forming a natural barrier against further en- 

 croachments of the sea at that point. The old town of 

 Lydd 1 also originally stood upon another island, as did 

 Ivychurch, Old Winchelsea, and Guildford; the sea 

 sweeping round them and rising far inland at every 

 tide. Burmarsh, and the districts thereabout, were re- 

 claimed at a more recent period ; and by degrees the 

 islands disappeared, the sea was shut out, and the whole 

 became firm land. Large additions were made to it 

 from time to time by the deposits of shingle along the 

 coast, which left several towns, formerly important sea- 

 ports, stranded upon the beach far inland. Thus the 

 ancient Eoman port at Lymne, past which the Limen 

 or Rother is supposed originally to have flowed, is left 

 high and dry more than three miles from the sea, and 

 sheep now graze where formerly the galleys of the 

 Romans rode. West Hythe, one of the Cinque Ports, 

 originally the port for Boulogne, is silted up by the wide 

 extent of shingle used by the modern School of Mus- 

 ketry as their practising-ground. Old Eomney, about 

 the centre of the marsh, past which the Rother after- 

 wards flowed, was one of the ancient ports of the dis- 

 trict, but it is now about two miles from the sea. The 

 marshmen seem to have followed up the receding waters, 

 and then founded the town of New Romney, which 

 also became a Cinque Port ; but a storm which occurred 



1 Somncr, in his ' Treatise of the 

 Human Ports and Forts in Kent,' cites 



the Charter of OlYa, king of tin- Angles, 

 by which he grants the Manor of Lydd 

 in Archbishop .lanibert in the year 

 774; and the boundaries are thus de- 

 scribed : " The sea on the north and 

 east, and on the south the territory of 

 King Kdwy. It is called Deiigemarsh 

 as far as the stone which is placed at 

 the extreme point of the land; and to 

 the west and north, the confines of the 



kingdom, as far as to Bleechingc." 

 " From whence," adds Somner, " clear 

 enough it is, that the sea, with a large 

 and spacious inlet, arm, and estuary, 

 in those days flowed in between Lydd 

 and I Journey, ami was there met with 

 the river Limen." Up this river a 

 Danish fleet of 250 vessels sailed many 

 miles inland in the year SUM, and the 

 Danes built a castle at Appledore, 

 where they for sonic time held their 

 rende/.vous. 



