Landscape
The coast, marshes and river valleys between Hastings and Hythe, with their associated habitats and wild species, form an exceptionally rich and distinctive landscape which receives large numbers of visitors every year. This is a landscape rich in history and heritage, the product of complex and dynamic relationships between people and natural forces stretching back for thousands of years. Yet it is also one of the most extensive areas of tranquillity in the South East, within easy reach of important centres of population, and increasingly popular as a destination for holidays and day-trips.
This land has been reclaimed by the sea and shaped by people over hundreds of years. It is an open, low-lying, agricultural landscape, with reclaimed marshes maintained by a system of drainage dykes. The landscape is a mosaic of extensive arable fields, grazing pasture land, coastal vegetated shingle, reed fringed ditches and patches of open water.
The area is bounded to the north and west by former sea cliffs, which mark the historic shoreline. The Napoleonic Royal Military Canal runs along the base of this cliffline for much of its length.
