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ties. At Hythe,1 or rather at
Limpne, a reasonably
good harbour probably existed, but the ground abutting
upon it does not in any degree possess, or appear to have
possessed, the requisite peculiarities, and a movement
from hence would have brought the Roman fleet to the
shore of Romney Marsh, where it is impossible to suppose
that Caesar would have disembarked; neither is it
credible that he could, in the first instance, have steered
to Romney, or any other spot within the limits of the
marsh. At Pevensey, there may have been a harbour,
but it is difficult to imagine that any of the surrounding
ground can ever have suited with Caesar's description,
and a distance of seven or eight miles from hence
would reach the cliff's towards Beachy Head. Neither of
these localities therefore entirely fulfils the conditions
requisite to establish the probability of its having been
the place of Caesar's arrival; but there is one other spot to examine, viz. Winchelsea; here, as already noticed,
there was a spacious harbour at the earliest date which
is recorded, and I think there is the strongest ground
for assuming it to have-existed at the time of the Roman
invasion; there is also very great probability of the deposit
on which the old town of Winchelsea stood having
been formed at that time, but of this no proof is to be
found. I have not met with any evidence of the position
of the harbour, but it can hardly have been anywhere
else than between the site of the old town and
the hills towards Pett. The whole of what is now Pett
level, as far inland as to the cliff on which modern
Winchelsea
stands, has unquestionably been occupied by the
sea, and I have not any doubt that at the date of Caesar's
1 There
once was a small harbour at Hythe, apparently a narrow creek
formed by a bar of sand or mud, a short distance off the firm
shore; it
seems to have been in great part choked by an accumulation of the
same
kind of deposit, and subsequently to have been obliterated by the
drift of
beach; or perhaps the bar was washed away before the beach began
to
collect. |