InfoBritain - Travel Through History In The UK :
South East England
South East England
The Medway at Teston, Kent
South east England has often been the gateway through which change came to Britain. The Romans landed first on the Kent coast in 54BC when Julius Caesar mounted his initial expeditions to Britain. It is thought that Julius Caesar fought his first battle against the Britons at what is now known as Bigbury Hill Fort near Canterbury. When the Romans invaded Britain properly in 43AD, they once again landed on the Kent coast. They found that the country's principal river, the Thames lay opposite the main trading artery of Europe, the river Rhine. This meant that London and the south east became the natural centre for commerce and trade, a status the region has never relinquished. After the Romans left around 410AD, the vanguard of the Saxon invaders landed in Thanet as mercenaries in the fifth century. The missionary Augustine landed in 597AD, once again in Thanet: his arrival heralded a major strengthening of the Christian religion among the Anglo Saxons who had generally followed pagan customs. The Normans landed at Hastings in 1066. In 1940 the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies over the south east. The echoes of all these historical moments can be heard in this part of the country.
Roman light house and Saxon church at Dover Castle
There are certain places in the south east where all these changes seem to be held together. At Dover Castle there is a Roman light house, a Saxon church, a Norman keep, fortifications from the Napoleonic wars, and an underground naval headquarters used in the Second World War. At Pevensey Castle, where the Norman army landed in 1066, there is a Norman castle which was built within the walls of the earlier Roman fort. There are also additions relating to later conflicts, right up to block houses and gun emplacements built in 1940. As John Talbot White says of Pevensey Castle in his book The South East: "Three successful invasions - Roman, Saxon and Norman - and three unsuccessful invasions - Spanish, French and German - are reflected in the historic development of the site." (P116)
The south east has also experienced great change in the role it has played within the country. A region which is often termed "The Garden of England" could claim to be Britain's first industrial area. Iron working was known before the Roman invasion. This industry developed further to serve the Roman army and navy. Following the Roman withdrawal in the fifth century the iron industry continued. The doors of Staplehurst church in Kent have elaborate iron work dating to about 1109, as have church doors at Woking, Merton, Merstham, Crowhurst, Charlwood and Ockley. By 1254 the Sussex iron masters could meet royal demands for 30,000 horse shoes and 60,000 nails. Late in the fifteenth century when skilled workmen from the continent introduced new techniques, iron forges and mills proliferated. In the area of West Hoathly in mid Sussex almost every building has links with the iron industry. The door of the church, as well as having bullet holes from the Civil War, has the date 31 March 1626 formed with iron studs. The Tudor and Stuart navies depended on the south east's iron industry. If you walk over the wide open spaces of Ashdown Forest today, you do so because the tree cover was taken to feed the naval iron industry. Batemans, the house of Rudyard Kipling was originally built by an iron master in 1634. Iron wasn't the only industry: glass production took place at Knowle, cloth at Smarden and Cranbrook, and ships were built on the Medway at Chatham Dockyard.
View of South East England from Leith Hill
Decline came in the early eighteenth century once industry started to use coal. The south east does not have accessible coal deposits, so industry moved north. In place of industry the south east turned to fruit and hop growing. It was in this period that The Garden of England came into being. The image of England's Garden is usually one of sheep, fruit trees in blossom, and oast houses. Sheep had been grazed since the Domesday survey in 1086. Fruit had been grown by the Romans in the south east, and the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale near Faversham, Kent still grows varieties the Romans would have eaten. The modern fruit industry in the south east dates back to the efforts of Richard Harrys, fruiter to Henry the Eighth. The descendents of some of the varieties he introduced, such as Pippin apples can still be bought in supermarkets. Hops were brought back from Flanders in 1533, and had become a major industry by the nineteenth century. Oast houses date to this nineteenth century highpoint in hop growing in the south east.
It is worth pointing out that the Garden Of England came into being at a time of fundamental change in the way people viewed nature. In the sixteenth century nature had still been something to shut yourself away from, something essentially hostile. By the eighteenth century human domination of the natural environment was complete, and there were no "natural" areas of land left in Britain. Every part of the landscape was shaped by man's activities. Gardens were now being made to look like natural landscapes, at Painshill, Petworth, Danson Park, Windsor Great Park, Scotney Castle, Sheffield Park and Onslow Park. There was no clear demarcation between nature and the garden, and the south east itself could be termed a garden. This would not have happened in earlier times.
Now the Garden of England is itself becoming history. Sheep are grazed less, and the traditional fruit orchards are being replaced with more efficient dwarf trees. I walk our dog through a derelict orchard of large traditional fruit trees. Creepers hang from the boughs and fruit drops unwanted. Oast houses now are rarely used for drying hops, and many have been converted into houses. The Hop Farm at Beltring which has a collection of impressive oasts is now a visitor attraction, with the oasts used as museums and play areas. In the countryside many fields are now yellow rather than green, as rapeseed is grown more frequently.
Samphire Hoe
The south east has always been a place of change, a place where the rhythms of a wider world come into the country, either physically as invading armies, or more subtly as people with new ideas and skills. The land itself is changing. If you walk along the Seven Sisters white cliffs, and look down at recent cliff falls, there is a real sense of the sea advancing. It's a beautiful place, the Seven Sisters, and walking there part of me wondered whether it would be good to stop the change. As a boy I remember being taken to the Channel Tunnel visitors' centre. We would climb a tower and look out over the vast building works of the tunnel. The spoil from this tunnel has created a whole new stretch of land, called Samphire Hoe, in front of the white cliffs just east of Dover. The famous white chalk cliffs in this area now stand back from the relentless attack of the sea. But without the sea to undermine the cliffs and keep them in motion, they are slowly becoming covered in vegetation, and are not white anymore. The white cliffs are only as they are in being changed by the sea.
Images of the South East
Scotney Castle, Kent
Bluebell Railway, East and West Sussex
Polesden Lacey, Surrey