The North Kent Marshes are in the far north of the county of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

spanning dry and wet south banks and inlets of the

Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...

in south-east

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The marshes are one of 22 Environmentally Sensitive Areas recognised by the UK's

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United K ...

(DEFRA). They are in the Thames Gateway regional planning area.TGKP Working Document 2. 26 Nov 2002 They include the

South Thames Estuary and Marshes South Thames Estuary and Marshes is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest which stretches between Gravesend and the mouth of the River Medway in Kent. Part of it is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I, and part is a Royal Societ ...

biological SSSI.

Governance

The marshes are nearly contiguous and span the districts of

Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames estuary, is Thurrock in ...

Gravesham Gravesham ( ) is a local government district with borough status in north-west Kent, England. Its administrative centre and largest town is Gravesend, which was known as ''Gravesham'' in ancient times. Gravesham was formed on 1 April 1974 ...

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to ...

, Swale and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

. They are protected in the Kent and Medway Structure Plan. In successive

Local Plans A development plan sets out a local authority's policies and proposals for land use in their area. The term is usually used in the United Kingdom. A Local Plan is one type of development plan. The development plan guides and shapes day-to-day dec ...

, required by UK

Planning Law Town and country planning in the United Kingdom is the part of English land law which concerns land use planning. Its goal is to ensure sustainable economic development and a better environment. Each country of the United Kingdom has its own ...

they have been included, regard being had to their environmental benefit. The marshes serve as emergency natural flood protection for

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Ecology

Most of the northern edge of

, west of the relatively modest Thanet peninsula, has been

marshland A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...

for millennia. Steeper gravel beaches with hills behind and segments of low cliff in the east at

Whitstable Whitstable () is a town on the north coast of Kent adjoining the convergence of the Swale Estuary and the Greater Thames Estuary in southeastern England, north of Canterbury and west of Herne Bay. The 2011 Census reported a population of ...

and Herne Bay form the most notable exceptions, along a stretch of about . The almost of marshes, in many places reaching inland, stretch from the large town of

in the west, to the west of Whitstable in the east. In the centre of the marshes are the semi-suburban grouping of the

Medway Towns Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to f ...

: Chatham, Gillingham and Rochester.

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separa ...

and

Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient Briti ...

are also located on the marshes. The

Saxon Shore Way The Saxon Shore Way is a long-distance footpath in England. It starts at Gravesend, Kent, and traces the coast of South-East England as it was in Roman times as far as Hastings, East Sussex, in total. This means that around Romney Marsh the ...

runs along the coast of the marshes, and onwards to

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

on the south coast. The marshes have been recognised as one of the most important natural wetlands in northern Europe, and they are monitored by local landowners and wildlife custodians. According to the

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a charitable organisation registered in England and Wales and in Scotland. It was founded in 1889. It works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment th ...

, up to 300,000 migrant birds use the mudflats of the Thames marshes as a haven each year in their migratory journeys between the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

.North Kent Marshes Nature Reserves – What's on January—June 2007 The RSPB have acquired considerable stretches of Cliffe marshes on the Hoo peninsula. They maintain reserves at Cliffe pools,

Northward hill Northward Hill is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest Kent. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2, and is also designated High Halstow National Nature Reserve The site is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection o ...

, High Halstow and Elmley Marshes, Sheppey. The

Medway Council Medway Council is the local authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. The council was created on 1 April 1998 and replaced Rochester-upon-Medw ...

's riverside park at Gillingham is also managed, public-access marshland. The North Kent Marshes' stable water level provides an important habitat for water vole. Shorne and Higham marshes, with parts of Cliffe and Cooling marsh, Allhallows and

Grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

marshes and Sheppey here are three of their thirteen main habitats in Britain.

Cultural references

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

' novel ''

Great Expectations ''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (Great Expectations), Pip (the book is a ''bildungsroman''; a coming-of-age story). It ...

'' is partly set in the marshes. * Books by

Nicola Barker Nicola Barker (born 30 March 1966) is an English novelist and short story writer. She was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. When she was still young her parents left England and settled in South Africa. Fiction Typically she writes about ...

are set in the marshes. * The

Channel Four Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in ...

series ''

Southcliffe ''Southcliffe'' is a British drama series that aired on Channel 4. Set in a fictional town on the North Kent Marshes, it employs a nonlinear narrative structure to tell the story of a series of shootings by a local man portrayed by Sean Harris ...

'' (2013) was set in a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

amid the marshes. Most of the series was filmed in and around

References

{{coord , 51, 29, N, 0, 30, E, type:forest_region:GB-MDW, display=title Landforms of Kent Marshes of England Medway Protected areas of Kent

Governance

Ecology

Cultural references

See also

References