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Pegwell Bay is famous for wildlife, and its birds in particular.
But it is even more famous as the area where three out of five of the
most important invasions of Britain took place. First were the Roman invasions, then Hengist and Horsa in AD449 who came
from Scandinavia in Viking ships. Finally St. Augustine in AD597 who brought Christianity to Britain for
the very first time. Pegwell Bay makes the Top Seven despite being strewn with industrial
litter. There is a huge concrete raft, a relic of the time when hovercraft
regularly crossed the channel from Pegwell Bay. And the shoreline of the bay itself is landfill - bricks and stones and
household junk. But nature has had the last word and Pegwell Bay is alive
with flora and fauna.
The geology of Pegwell Bay shows that the whole of the South East of
England was once under water.
In the chalk is a tiny fraction of the animals and plants that were living
when Thanet was covered by a deep sea. There are some large examples of ammonites from 80m years ago. Ammonites were similar to the Nautilus that is found in the Indian Ocean
today. They lived with a sort of squid like body coming out of the end of the
shell and they changed their depth in the sea by changing the gases within
the chamber. |