At that time (1st to 3rd Century AD[3]) there was already an important port from which timber and iron were supposedly shipped to the continent, and a small settlement, as evidenced by finds of Roman bricks and an earthen figurine of Mercury that were excavated there.

The settlement was made accessible to seagoing craft in the 1330s when the Knelle dam—an earthen bank at Wittersham Levels in the lower Rother valley (grid reference TQ 852 269[7]) constructed to deflect floodwater from the holdings of local landowner Geoffrey de Knelle—diverted the main course of the river around the north of Oxney island.

[8] Large sea-going warships were built on the river banks from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, with associated ship-breaking for reuse of fittings and timber.

The ready supply of timber from the Weald made this isolated community one of the most important shipbuilding centres, other than the major ports, in the country.

[9][10] The town of Tenterden was given the status of a Limb of the Cinque Ports, with its consequent relief from taxation, in acknowledgement of providing royal warships built in Small Hythe.