Visitor Centre & Nature Reserve

Romney Marsh Visitor Centre & Romney Warren Local Nature Reserve

Update -The Visitor Centre is temporarily closed

Currently the visitor centre is in a period of change of lease. Kent Wildlife Trust who historically have managed the visitor centre, decided not to renew their lease in the summer of 2024. So the landowners, Folkestone and Hythe District Council, are busy working in the background finding the right organisation to take over the lease.  

The Local Nature Reserve and car parks are still open, so please do come and visit. 

Location

Romney Marsh Visitor Centre, Dymchurch Rd, New Romney, Kent, TN28 8AY

The Project

The Romney Marsh Visitor Centre was opened in 2004. The centre and garden was recently managed by Kent Wildlife Trust on behalf of Folkestone and Hythe District Council. It aims to let people know about the Marsh’s special wildlife and history, serving as an educational facility while supporting tourism locally. The Local Nature Reserve is managed by Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership. 

Other activities at the Romney Warren Local Nature Reserve include:

• Habitat management of the Local Nature Reserve/SSSI by volunteers
• Management of the community garden by volunteers
• Countryside activities including children’s Green Gang events and guided walks led by Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership

The Building 

Designed by architects BBM Sustainable Design the environmentally friendly timber-framed centre has been built on “brownfield” land, has rendered straw-bale walls, a sedum covered “living roof” and incorporates materials including recycled motorway surface.

As part of the Romney Warren Country Park project’s wider aims much of the construction work was completed by unemployed and disabled trainees attached to South Kent College under the supervision of builders Eco-Librium.

The visitor centre accommodates:-

• A beautiful exhibition featuring the area’s history landscape and wildlife – built using recycled material and low-impact materials
• Mini-café
• Shop – with sales of local interest items and plants grown on-site by volunteers
• Toilets

Please note the visitor centre is currently temporarily closed.

Romney Warren Country Park

In spite of being sited on a former gravel pit, landfill site and highways depot much of Romney Warren Country Park is an attractive Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated for its fixed dune grassland and seasonal ponds. With nationally important populations of great crested newts, diving beetles, rare medicinal leeches, dragonflies and spiders present Folkestone and Hythe District Council has declared the area a Local Nature Reserve.

A boardwalk over seasonal ponds and a way-marked trail around part of the SSSI already bring visitors into contact with the site’s wildlife. Other recent improvements include:

• A railway halt linking the site with the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway
• Interpretation of the site’s wildlife and landscape
• Provision of picnic areas

The Park’s landscaping and management proposals are being developed in the context of a nature conservation management plans provided by the Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership. Much of this work is being carried out by RMCP volunteers.

A PDF of the Romney Warren Country Park leaflet*

*Please note: Since its publication some of the details have changed. The leaflet is supplied for general information only.

How you can get Involved…

Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership are keen to hear from you if you would like to become involved as a volunteer in the garden or helping to manage the wider site. Volunteers are essential on this site in managing a wide range of aspects of the site, from clearing the scrub and hedgelaying in the winter to maintaining the pathways and monitoring the wildlife in the summer.

Contact us now to get involved at: RMCP@dover.gov.uk or on: 01304 241806