Pegwell Bay is famous for wildlife, and its birds in particular. But it is even more famous as the area where three out of five of the most important invasions of Britain took place. First were the Roman invasions, then Hengist and Horsa in AD449 who came from Scandinavia in Viking ships. Finally St. Augustine in AD597 who brought Christianity to Britain for the very first time. Pegwell Bay makes the Top Seven despite being strewn with industrial litter. There is a huge concrete raft, a relic of the time when hovercraft regularly crossed the channel from Pegwell Bay. And the shoreline of the bay itself is landfill - bricks and stones and household junk. But nature has had the last word and Pegwell Bay is alive with flora and fauna. The geology of Pegwell Bay shows that the whole of the South East of England was once under water. In the chalk is a tiny fraction of the animals and plants that were living when Thanet was covered by a deep sea. There are some large examples of ammonites from 80m years ago. Ammonites were similar to the Nautilus that is found in the Indian Ocean today. They lived with a sort of squid like body coming out of the end of the shell and they changed their depth in the sea by changing the gases within the chamber. July 2008