9. the Topography of the Walland Marsh Area Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries
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9. The Topography of the Walland Marsh area between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries Tim Tatton-Brown Introduction 27-9) in the Decalcified (Old) Marshland. In the centre Until the publication of the Soil Survey by Green (1968) of this latter area are the demesne lands around Agney most maps of the Romney and Walland Marsh area Court Lodge, which are documented in detail from the which attempted to reconstruct the topography of the early 13th century (the Court Lodge building was marsh before the great storms of the 13th century rebuilt in 1287'). In 1225 a large amount of stock is showed a large estuary or channel running from near recorded as having been taken to Agney (14 cows, one Appledore to curve south and east around the so-called bull, 100 sheep, and four horses to plough) and there can 'Archbishops' Innings' (Elliott 1862) south-west of the be no doubt that the area of Creek Ridge No. 2 was, by Rhee Wall, before turning north-east to run past Midley this date, fully reclaimed (Smith 1943, 147).Between the to a mouth near New Romney (Steers 1964; Ward demesne lands of the manor around the Court Lodge 1952,12). Since the Soil Survey was published most and the long strip of Upper and Lower Agney (which writers have assumed that the old main course of the was inned in and after the fourteenth century: Gardiner, Rother (or 'river of Newenden' as it appears to have 1988) is a roughly triangular area which is enclosed by been called in the thirteenth century) ran from sea walls (the still very massive wall from Baynham to Appledore to New Romney down the small meandering Hawthorn Corner is on its south side) and which stream shown just north of the Rhee Wall on Green's contains a very large creek relic on Green's soil map. On map (e.g. Cunliffe 1980, 49-51). Recent study of the tithe maps for Old Romney this is called the 'Great available evidence now suggests that this stream was Brack' or 'Breck' - and this must refer to the great break very small, and that we should perhaps return to the in the sea wall at Midley House (TR 016236) which earlier model (though considerably refined by reference presumably occurred in one of the storms of the later to Green's soil survey map). Brooks' problems with the 13th century. (On Elliott's map of 1862, and often name Rumen ea (broad river) can easily be resolved if this copied later, this enclosure is called 'Archbishop refers to the Wainway, and not to the small stream from Peckham's Innings' and wrongly dated 1229: Peckham Snargate. It is possible also that the main course of the was, in fact, Archbishop from 1279-92. Thus, any work 'river of Newenden' originally came south of the Isle of in Archbishop Peckham's time is likely to have been Oxney along the line of the county boundary, rather secondary reclamation following the breach.) than north of Oxney past Appledore (Eddison 1985). Dating the change of river course to Rye The evidence for topographical change A constantly-repeated assertion in the many books about Romney Marsh is that the Rother changed its The course of the 'Rother' to Romney course to a new outlet to the sea near Rye as a result of The lowest part of the principal channel to the Romney the great storm of 1287. This cannot be correct. The mouth until the twelfth century was probably on the line occupation ofAgney in 1225 is evidence that the river no of the later Wainway channel in the southern part of longer flowed by Agney to Romney at that time, and it Walland Marsh, and thence ran north-eastwards up the seems likely that the river had changed its course to centre of the long arm of calcareous (younger) soils empty into the sea near Old Winchelsea by at least the leading towards Old Romney (Fig. 9.1). The final late 12th century. course of this channel in the 12th century is probably The effects of this change would have been felt in marked by the long thin south-westerly extension of Old several ways. Silting problems in the port of Romney Romney parish, which is also entirely in the Canterbury would have been very great and hence the almost Cathedral Priory manor of Lower and Upper Agney. immediate need for a new town and port nearer the sea, This strip neatly cuts the parish of Midley into two and ultimately for an artificial water channel to the port, parallel halves (though it is interesting to note that the in order to flush out the silt brought in by the tides. At tithes for it, as recorded in the 1842 apportionments, the same time the creation of a new, more direct course went to Midley). The strip continues to Old Romney for the 'Rother' to the sea near Old Winchelsea may church as Green's Creek Ridge No. 2 (Green 1968, have encouraged more land to be inned and drained in 106 Tim Tatton-Brown the Fairfield and Brookland areas, as well as in the area Simon Scadeway, son of Baldwin, and his brothers, west of Midley and Lydd, and it seems likely that it was called 'Englishmen' (anglicos). It was agreed that Simon at this time that the regular patterns of drains were held a fourth part of the land of Misleham of Christ created in these areas, so that much of the land could be Church "with the duty of walling (vallare) it on the sea used for arable. side". This is then followed in the Register by six charters (one a duplicate) in which Prior Geoffrey (1 191-1207) and Christ Church grant to their men of Misleham at Old and New Romney least five blocks of 35 acres each, to be held in gavelkind The most important change in the marsh, which at 4d. an acre: they must also "defend the land against probably took place in the mid-12th century was the fresh and salt water by walls and watergangs". Each transference of the town or burh of Romney to a new site block of 35 acres is sub-divided into units of between one near the already ancient (Middle Saxon) church of St. and 17* acres, and several of the 'Men of Misleham' Martin (see also Brooks 1988). Here a completely new have units in more than one block (Table 9.1). There planned town was laid out with the very large new can be little doubt that these charters show that Baldwin double-aisled church of St. Nicholas. It is also about was inning new land in c. 1 160 and that thirty or so years 1140 that 'Old' and 'New' Romney were first mentioned later this was good arable land farmed by the 'Men of as separate places - in the cartulary of the Abbey of St. Misleham'. Remarkably, this area (Fig. 9.1) is still Nicholas at Arrosaise in the Pas de Calai~.~In this shown on the modern Ordnance Survey maps as an area cartulary, the church of St. Clement "de Veteri Romenal" of very regular fields (an almost rectilinear system), and was given to the Canons of the Abbey, perhaps soon after the acreages as shown on the Tithe Map vary from three the move. The new site on the shingle bank at the mouth to eighteen acres. The principal drainage channel is still of the estuary, which is similar in position to the roughly called Baldwin's Sewer, and there can be no doubt that contemporary new town of Stonar on the shingle bank the parish of Brookland (and its church) were newly opposite Sandwich, was probably necessitated by the created at this time. Baldwin's Innings also cover part of rapid silting up of the estuary leading up to Old the neighbouring parish of Ivychurch, across the very Romney, and this in turn is likely to have been caused by straight parish and hundred boundary which still the cessation of the pre-Wainway channel to act as the survives, and the pattern of walls in Green's soil map principal outlet for all the waters coming from the Weald suggests that Baldwin's Innings is secondary to St. of Kent and East Sussex to the west. Thomas's Innings to the south-east. Here is situated One other piece of evidence suggesting a breach in the More Court, which Hasted (1797-1801, 8, 401) says shingle in the Rye and Winchelsea area by the mid-12th belonged to the More family from at least Henry II's century is the rapid rise of those two towns, from relative time. obscurity at the time of Domesday (1086) to full St. Thomas's Innings, which also contains a very membership of the Cinque Ports as the 'two ancient regular field and sewer pattern, has at its north-east towns' by the time of Henry 11, the latter confirmed in a corner a large block ofland which until 192 1 belonged to charter of 1197. Within a hundred years one of them, Magdalen College, Oxford (Frontispiece). The college Old Winchelsea, was destroyed by the sea. Old owned this land (ofjust over 80 acres) from 148 1, when it Winchelsea may have stood on a shingle bank, but it is took over the lands of the Hospital of St. Stephen and St. also possible that in origin it was one of the islands in the Thomas at New Romney, and charters in the college marsh, like Cheyney and Scotney.