Rye Harbour

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

is a nature reserve located on the western side of the mouth of the River Rother at Rye Harbour, about 1 mile downstream from

Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is grown principally in an area from Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia. It is much more tolerant of cold weather and poor soil than o ...

East Sussex. It forms part of a wide network of SSSI's on the Kent-Sussex border that include the Romney & Walland Marsh, the Dungeness Peninsula, the lower Rother Valley and the Pett Levels. It is a complicated site of both biological and geological interest. Varied habitats of shingle, saltmarsh and intertidal muds host a wide variety of flora and fauna. It forms the second largest area of shingle habitat in southern England, only surpassed in area by

Dungeness Dungeness (, ) is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the ham ...

. A much larger area is designated as the Rye Harbour Local Nature Reserve. The

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

citation for the site covers an area of 761 hectares, but the details page and map cover a small area of 5.6 hectares north of the nature reserve. The area covered by the map may have been transferred to the Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay SSSI, but the citations are for the old SSSIs.

References

External links

* http://rxwildlife.org.uk/category/rye-harbour-nature-reserve/ * http://www.wildrye.info/ * http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/about/map.php Sites of Special Scientific Interest in East Sussex Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1953 Local Nature Reserves in East Sussex Icklesham {{EastSussex-geo-stub