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Map of South East England. Being closest to the European mainland, the South East of England has long been the gateway through which successive waves of settlers and invaders have entered the island.

The main upland areas of the region are the gently swelling chalk ridges of the North and South Downs, which stretch east from the Hampshire Downs to the Channel coast. Lying within this horseshoe of chalk, which terminates abruptly in the white cliffs of Dover in the north, and Beachy Head in the South, are the sands and clays of the Kent and Sussex Weald, outside it are the sands and clays of the Sussex Plain, the North Kent Plain and the London Basin.

Other landscape features include the sheep-grazed levels of Romney Marsh, criss-crossed by drainage dykes, the broad, triangular peninsula of Dungeness, embracing the largest continuous area of shingle in the country, and the New Forest in Hampshire, a 145 square mile area of high, wind swept heath land, partly wooded scrubland and low lying marshland. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 not only confirmed the South East’s status as the Gateway to England, it also heralded the start of a new era in the island’s relationship with mainland Europe.

Places to visit
(refer to map of South East England)
Jack and Jill – famous pair of windmills at Duncton Down above the hamlet of Clayton, West Sussex.
Dover Castle, Kent
Museum of Kent Life, Cobtree, Kent
Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire
Houses of Parliament, London
Seven Sisters, East Sussex (Line of perpendicular chalk cliffs)
Leeds Castle, Kent