To the south of Hythe this shore borders the wide expanse of Romney Marsh, which, immediately west of Hythe, is overlooked by a line of abrupt hills, but for the rest is divided on the north from the drainage system of the Stour only by a slight uplift.
As the name implies, the ports originally constituting the body were only five in number - Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich; but to these were afterwards added the "ancient towns" of Winchelsea and Rye with the same privileges, and a good many other places, both corporate and non-corporate, which, with the title of limb or member, held a subordinate position.
To Rye was attached the corporate member of Tenterden, and to a Hythe the non-corporate member of West Hythe.
They are found in the Lower Greensand, or Upper Neocomian series, in the Atherfield Clay at Stopham, near Pulborough; occasionally at the junction of the Hythe and Sandgate beds; and in the Folkeston beds, at Farnham.
This is succeeded by an outcrop of the Lower Greensand - including the Folkestone, Sandgate and Hythe beds with the thin Atherfield Clay at the base - which extends across the country from west to east with a breadth of from 2 to 7 m., and rises into the picturesque elevations of the Ragstone hills.
