Reculver - Geography

Geography

Reculver is located on the north coast of Kent, about 3 miles (5 km) east of Herne Bay, 8 miles (13 km) west of Margate, 30 miles (48 km) east by north of the county town of Maidstone, and 58 miles (93 km) east by south from London. It once occupied a strategic location on routes between continental Europe and the east coast of England, but this has been obscured by sedimentation and coastal erosion. In the Iron Age, it lay on a promontory at the north-western entrance to the Wantsum Channel, a sea lane between the Isle of Thanet and the Kent mainland, which silted up during the Middle Ages. The ruins of a Roman fort and a medieval church stand on the remains of the promontory, a low hill with a maximum height of 50 feet (15 m), which is the "last seaward extension of the Blean Hills."

Sediments laid down around 55 million years ago are particularly well displayed in the cliffs at Reculver. Nearby Herne Bay is the type location for the Thanet Sand Formation, a fine-grained sand that can be clayey and glauconitic and is of Thanetian (late Paleocene) age. It rests unconformably on the Chalk Group, and forms the base of the cliffs in the Reculver and Herne Bay area. Above the Thanet Sand are the Upnor Formation, a medium sandstone, and the sandy clays of the Harwich Formation at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary. The highest cliffs, rising to a maximum height of about 115 feet (35 m) to the west of Reculver, have a cap of London Clay, a fine silty clay of Eocene age.

These rocks are easily washed away by the sea. It has been estimated that the Roman fort was originally about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the sea, but the cliffs are eroding at a rate of approximately 5 feet (2 m) a year. Coastal erosion had washed away most of Reculver village by 1800, leading residents to re-locate to Hillborough, within Reculver parish. A plan is in place to manage this erosion whereby some parts of the coastline such as the country park will be allowed to continue eroding, and others – including the site of the Roman fort and the medieval church – will be protected from further erosion. New sea defences were built in the 1990s, including covering the beaches around the church with boulders.

The warmest time of year in Kent is in July and August, with average maximum temperatures of around 21 °C (70 °F), and the coolest is in January and February, with average minimum temperatures of around 1 °C (34 °F). Average maximum and minimum temperatures are about 0.5 °C higher than they are nationally. Locations on the north coast of Kent, like Reculver, are sometimes warmer than areas further inland, owing to the influence of the North Downs to the south. Average annual rainfall in Kent is about 728 millimetres (29 in), with the highest rainfall from October to January. This is lower than the national average annual rainfall of 838 millimetres (33 in), and occasional drought conditions can lead to the imposition of hosepipe bans.