Coatham Marsh

Coatham Marsh has been pinpointed as the site of one of the last strongholds of northern nobles as they held out against the invasion by William the Conqueror. A battle is believed to have been fought here, in either 1069, or 1070, with the defensive structures remaining visible until the early 20th century. The site was used in the 12th and 13th centuries as a place to produce salt from seawater. The evidence of these saltings can still be found in the present day marsh. In the early 1840s, as the land remained undeveloped, it was regularly flooded by high tides. The habitat suffered pollution, during the 1960s 70s and 80s, due to waste from local steel and iron plants being dumped onto…