Saxon Shore Way

262 km / 163 miles

E Sussex, Kent, Medway
The Way around the ancient coastline offers a diversity of scenery, from wide expanses of marshland bordering the Thames and Medway estuaries to the White Cliffs of Dover. There are views over Romney Marsh from the escarpment that marks the ancient coastline between Folkestone and Rye and from the cliffs of the High Weald at Hastings. Here the Romans invaded Britain and, later, built the Saxon Shore forts to defend the island against a new wave of invaders, and St Augustine landed to bring the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom which would later fall to the Normans who, in their turn, erected great fortresses like Dover Castle to defend their conquests.

Two linking walks also included on OS mapping are the Swale Heritage Trail - from Murston to Goodnestone (12 miles, covered by OS LR 178 and 179 and Ex 149 maps) which caters for circular walks of up to 20 miles when incorporated with the Saxon Shore route between Murston and Faversham, and the waymarked Wantsum Walks (30 miles, covered by OS LR 179 and Ex 150 maps) between Herne Bay and Birchington around the Wantsum river, which can be incorporated with the Way to provide extended circular routes, as the Way skirts west of the Wantsum.

From Dover to Rye the E9 follows it and at Rye the route connects with the 1066 Country Walk: see E-Routes (E9.

The waymarked Maritime Heritage Trail (total 32 miles) is a series of four connecting circular walks between Hastings and Rye and based on Hastings (7 miles), Fairlight (8 miles), Winchelsea (10 miles) and Rye (7 miles)so providing alternative routes for the 20 miles between the two towns.