Kent’s tidal coastline has changed in length and shape since 1700 due to the constant movement of tides and currents of sea and rivers and human activity. This can be clearly seen when comparing eighteenth-century maps of the Isle of Thanet and Romney Marsh with those of today. Evidence of ‘history without humans’ can be seen in the way that the low-lying north Kent coastline has been ‘eaten by the Thames’, as one eighteenth-century anonymous observer described it. Human activity has directed those changes in attempts to control and restrain the sea by reclaiming marshes, building coastal defences and flood barriers, and constructing harbours, groins and piers. The course and flow of rivers have also been changed by the construction of bridges, embankments, walls, weirs and locks.

The greatest change to the coastline, resulting from human endeavour, has occurred since 1800 and was a result of population increase, the growth of coastal towns, and improved technology. New harbours were built or greatly extended at Ramsgate, Whitstable, Dover and Folkestone. The costly process of guarding the coastline increased in the twentieth century, one example being the intermittent wall of cement from Seasalter east to Herne Bay. These changes were in response to the power of the sea, shown in the great storm of 1703, and by North Sea ‘surges’ of 1881 and 1897, and early 1953. Extensive sea defences, their maintenance and repair, whether by commissioners of sewers in the eighteenth century or by modern local authorities, have required large-scale expenditure of national and local revenues.

The ‘re-invention’ of ships in the nineteenth century, from wood to iron and steel, and from sail to steam and diesel, with increased size and tonnage, required larger yards for construction and new deep-water docking and port facilities. In 1840 the average size of a merchant vessel trading to Kent ports weighed under 100 tonnes; by 1914 that figure had increased nearly twentyfold. At the same time ocean freight was carried in new larger iron- and steel-hulled sailing vessels, and smaller sailing ships continued to ply their trade in Kent’s coastal waters and rivers.

Rivers, for centuries used to transport commercial goods, were also subject to changes to aid navigation, accommodate larger vessels, and to allow for a greater volume of trade.