Lympne Castle occupies one of the most instructive positions in southern England. It stands on the edge of an escarpment that once formed a coastline: the flat expanse of Romney Marsh below was open water when the Romans built a fort at the foot of the slope to guard a harbour that has since silted up entirely. Fragments of that fort still lie scattered on the hillside, pulled apart and tilted by landslip over the centuries. The castle above is a fortified medieval house rather than a military stronghold, long associated with the church at Canterbury, with a tower, a great hall and thick walls that owe as much to status and weather as to defence. Extensively repaired in the early twentieth century, it survives as a private house and events venue with commanding views towards the Channel. The film reads the site as a record of a changing coast, setting Roman harbour, medieval hall and modern marsh in a single sequence, and using aerial coverage to make the vanished shoreline legible.
