Bonnington - Location and Landscape

Location and Landscape

The small parish of Bonnington in the English county of Kent lies between the town of Ashford to the west (5 miles distant) and the coastal town of Hythe to the east (6 miles distant). To the north, the parish is bordered by the parish of Aldington, to the west, it borders the parish of Bilsington and to the south, the parish stretches into the low-lying coastal region of Romney Marsh. The parish covers an area of around 1,200 acres (486 hectares) of which about 40% forms part of Romney Marsh.

In landscape terms, the parish of Bonnington has much in common with its neighbour Aldington. Thus, parts of the parish are designated, and protected, as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and parts are designated, and protected, as forming part of the Old Romney Shoreline Special Landscape Area.

A particularly striking feature of Bonnington's landscape is the low elevation above sea level of much of the land to the north of the Royal Military Canal - on average only 10 ft (3m) to 100 ft (31m) above sea level. This very low-lying area once lay directly on the English Channel, and the Royal Military Canal, which separates the low lying area from the even lower Romney Marsh, marks the English Channel's former shoreline.

There has never been a village of Bonnington, and thus the parish has no obvious centre. The description of "scattered" given to Bonnington by Ford Madox Ford in the 19th century is still apt today.