ROMNEY-MARSH, a district in the south of Kent, and aliberty partly also in Sussex. The district lies on the coast, between Hythe and the boundary with Sussex; is divided into the sub-districts of New Romney and Lydd; and contains the parishes of West Hythe, Burmarsh, Dymchurch, Blackmanstone, Orgarswick, East-bridge, Newchurch, St. Mary-the-Virgin, Hope-All Saints, New Romney, Ivychurch, Lydd, Midley, Old Romney, Snave, Snargate, Brenzett, Brookland, and Fairfield. Stretching for miles toward Dungeness to the west and Folkestone to the east it is washed completely by the tide twice daily to leave a magnificent gently sloping strip of sand almost a 1/4 mile wide at low tide. The River Rother today flows into the sea below Rye; but until 1287 its mouth lay between Romney and Lydd. It was tidal far upstream, almost to Bodiam. The river mouth was wide with a huge lagoon making Rye a port at its western end. That lagoon lay behind a large island, which now makes up a large part of the Denge Marsh, on which stood the ports of Lydd and the old Winchelsea. All these ports were members of the Cinque Ports. Within the Romney Marsh, Romney and Hythe were two of the ports; Rye and Winchelsea were later added as Ancient Towns.

Battles of the Fourth Century AD

The seaports off of Sussex are now small and comparatively unimportant, but the mildness of the climate along the sea coast has led to the growth of numerous watering and bathing places and health resorts, including Brighton, Hastings, Eastbourne, Worthing, Seaford, Littlehampton, and Bognor. It is almost entirely in the diocese of Chichester that is also a city of remote antiquity, pleasantly situated close to the South Devon Hills. The see was founded in 681, at Selsey; and removed, in 1072, to Chichester. In the days of the Romans it was called Regnum, and was the headquarters of Vespasian. Regnum was burnt, in 478, by the Teutonic invader ELLA; restored by Ella's son CISSA, king of the South Saxons; and named after him Cissaceaster, signifying "Cissa's camp, " and modernized into Chichester. The citizens repelled the Danes in 876 and 900. The city, with eighty-three manors, was given by William the Conqueror to Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Alençon. The cathedral was founded in 1072; renovated after a fire in 1114; rebuilt after another fire in 1187. St. Olave's church was rebuilt in 1310, and restored in 1852. St. Pancras church was built in 1750 and otherwise improved, in 1869. St. Bartholomew's church, like that of St. Pancras, was rebuilt. St. John's church is an octagonal structure. -There are chapels for Independents, Baptists, Unitarians, Wesleyans, Quakers, and Roman Catholics.

The Saxon Shore Way starts at Gravesend, Kent and traces the coast as it was in Roman times as far as Hastings, East Sussex, 163 miles (262 km) in total, crossing the Marsh. Only a hythe, or landing place, was here at Domesday; but this bore the name of Gravesham, or the town of the grave, graef, or chief magistrate, -seemingly in allusion to its being at the extremity of the jurisdiction of the chief magistrate of London. Hastings as a watering-place was first established about the beginning of the present century from the site of the original town is supposed to be covered by the sea. Also a town and district in Sussex, Hastings stands about eleven miles from the boundary with Kent coastally. An ancient town stood south from the distance of the present one, fortified in the yeare 40, by Arviragus, against the Romans and under the name of Hastings, about the yeare 780, in the reign of Offa.

A settlement of the tribe called the Hæstingas. A Danish sea king, called Hasten or Hastinge, took post at it about 880 or 893. It had numerous ships and seameu at the time of the Conquest; it was the place of the Conqueror's encampment on the eve of the great battle which won him the crown of England and made a member of the Cinque Ports system for ship building, it has currently given name to that battle, that was really fought at the town of Battle, 7 miles distant. The east cliff view across the Channel, to the coast of France was seen from the environs of Sussex and by the west side, the remains of an ancient castle across from the Conqueror's camp before his march to Battle. The Castle stood on the south extremity of the West Cliff with area was about an acre and a half. St. Clement's church stands in Highstreet; is also later English; has, in its tower, two balls which were fired from the French and Dutch fleets in 1720; and contains two brasses of 1563 and 1601.

Hastings was chartered by Edward the Confessor. The parishes within the borough are All Saints, St. Clement, St. Andrew, Holy Trinity, St. Michael on the Rock, St. Mary-Magdalen, and St. Mary Bulverhithe, large parts of St. Mary in the Castle and St. Leonard on the Sea, and small parts of Ore and Bexhill. St. Andrew is an ancient parish, but has lost both its church and its ecclesiastical status. St. Michael on the Rock also is ancient; but became incorporated ecclesiastically with St. Mary-Magdalen; yet still appoints its officers and maintains its own poor. Holy Trinity was extra-parochial till 1831. The livings of All Saints and St. Clement are rectories, those of St. Clement-Halton and St. Mary in the Castle vicarages, the others p. curacies in the diocese of Chichester. Hastings borough acquired all the privileges of a cinque port in the time of William the Conqueror; got a series of charters from Edward I. till Elizabeth