Hythe (/ˈhaɪð/ ⓘ) is a market town and civil parish on the edge of Romney Marsh in Kent, England.

The earliest reference to Hythe is in Domesday Book (1086) though there is evidence of the area having been settled since Roman times.

Hythe has gardening, horse riding, bowling, tennis, cricket, football, squash and sailing clubs.

As an important Cinque Port, Hythe once possessed a bustling harbour which, over the course of 300 years, has now disappeared due to silting.

Hythe was the central Cinque Port, sitting between Hastings and New Romney to the west and Dover and Sandwich to the east.

Mackeson stout is no longer brewed locally but is produced under contract by one of the major national brewers.

Running under Stade Street, the canal, intended to repel invasion during the Napoleonic wars of 1804 to 1815, gives central Hythe its character.

The walls were up to 13 ft (4 m) thick, and each tower held 24 men and had a huge cannon mounted on the top.

Although never needed for their original purpose they were later used to combat smuggling and also acted as signalling stations and coastal defences during the two world wars.

Three of the towers survive at Hythe; one was converted to a house in the 1930s and can be seen along West Parade, and the other two are on the beach and are owned by the Ministry of Defence.

Geologically, the town developed on a succession of non-parallel terraces, rising from the level ground around the Royal Canal (previously named the Royal Military Canal) towards the steep incline upon which the parish church of St Leonard was built.

During the reign of King Canute the manor of Saltwood was granted to the priory of Christ Church in Canterbury, but during the 12th century it became the home of Henry d'Essex, constable of England.

Thomas Becket had sought from King Henry II restoration of the castle as an ecclesiastical palace.

A monumental cross now indicates what was from 1358 a meeting place of the confederation of the Cinque ports, several miles west of Hythe, known then as "the Shepway crossroads".

Shepway Cross was paid for and unveiled in August 1923 by Earl Beauchamp, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.