New Romney

Coordinates: 50°59′06″N 0°56′28″E / 50.985°N 0.941°E / 50.985; 0.941

New Romney is a small town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to silt up. New Romney, one of the original Cinque Ports, was once a sea port, with the harbour adjacent to the church, but is now more than a mile from the sea. A mooring ring can still be seen in front of the church. It is the headquarters of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

Geography

New Romney is not significantly different in age from the nearby village of Old Romney. However New Romney, now about a mile and a half from the seafront, was originally a harbour town at the mouth of the River Rother. The Rother estuary was always difficult to navigate, with many shallow channels and sandbanks. To make navigation easier two large rocks, one bigger than the other, were placed at the entrance to the main channel. The names of two local settlements, Greatstone and Littlestone, are a reminder of these aids. Another possible explanation for these place-names is a result of the effects of Longshore Drift, which disperses shingle and sand deposits, from west to east, with heavier stones accumulating in the area known as Greatstone, while far smaller shingle is to be found in great quantities at Littlestone. Very fine sand is found further east at neighbouring St Mary's Bay.

New Romney (UK Parliament constituency)

New Romney was a parliamentary constituency in Kent, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1371 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.

New Romney was a Cinque Port, which made it technically of different status from a parliamentary borough, but the difference was purely a nominal one. The constituency consisted of the town of New Romney; it had once been a flourishing port but by the 19th century the harbour had been destroyed and there was no maritime trade, the main economic activity being grazing cattle on Romney Marsh. In 1831, the population of the constituency was 978, and the town contained 165 houses.

The right to vote was reserved to the Mayor and Common Council of the town; however, many of these were customs or excise officers, who were disqualified from voting by a change in the law in 1782, so that in the early 19th century there were only 8 voters. The high proportion of voters holding paid government posts before this change in the law meant that New Romney was sometimes considered to be a "treasury borough" (that is, a constituency whose seats were in the gift of the government); but in practice the Dering family, local landowners, were even more influential and could sometimes defy government pressure.