Isle of Sheppey
The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of. The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. Sheppey is derived from Old English Sceapig, meaning "Sheep Island".
Today's island was historically known as the "Isles of Sheppey" which were Sheppey itself, the Isle of Harty to the south east and the Isle of Elmley to the south west. Over time the channels between the islands have silted up to make one contiguous island, which is now linked by two bridges to the Kentish mainland. Sheppey, like much of north Kent, is largely formed from London Clay and is a plentiful source of fossils. The Mount near Minster rises to above sea level and is the highest point on the island. The rest of Sheppey is low-lying and the southern part of the island is marshy land criss-crossed by inlets and drains, largely used for grazing. The economy is driven by a dockyard and port, the presence of three prisons, and various caravan sites.
The Swale
Sheppey is separated from the mainland by a channel called the Swale. In concert with the Wantsum Channel that once separated the Isle of Thanet from mainland Britain to the east, and Yantlet Creek at the Isle of Grain to the west, it was occasionally used in ancient times by ships navigating to and from ports such as Chatham and London to reduce exposure to bad weather in the Thames Estuary or North Sea.Bridges
The Kingsferry Bridge was first built in 1860, thus eliminating the need for ferries. Over time, there have been four bridges built over the Swale at this point. All bridges had to allow sufficient clearance for shipping heading to the commercial docks at Ridham.On 19 July 1860 the first bridge came into use. It was built for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, to an Admiralty design. It had a central span raised between two towers. Trains and road traffic were able to use it, as with the next two bridges.
On 6 November 1906 the second bridge, built for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, replaced the first. It had a "rolling lift" design that was originally worked by hand, but later by electricity.
In October 1959 Kingsferry Bridge, a lifting bridge, was completed, able to lift both the road and the railway line to allow ships to pass beneath.
In May 2006 the Sheppey Crossing was completed and opened on 3 July. This four-lane road bridge rises to a height of 95 feet at mean high water springs above the Swale, and carries the A249 trunk road. Pedestrian, animal and bicycle traffic, as well as the railway, are still obliged to use the lifting bridge, which still provides the most direct link between the island and the Iwade/Lower Halstow area.
On 5 September 2013, fog caused a 130 vehicle pile-up on the Sheppey Crossing bridge and its northern approach in which eight people were seriously hurt and another 30 hospitalised.
Ferries
Four ferries previously connected the island to mainland Kent: the King's Ferry to Iwade, the Harty Ferry to Faversham, one from Elmley, and a passenger ferry connecting to the Port Victoria railway terminus on the Grain Peninsula. The most recently active of these, the Harty Ferry, ceased operation at the start of the First World War, although there was a short lived attempt to start a small hovercraft service between the Harty Ferry Inn and Oare Creek near Faversham in 1970.Sheppey history
The complex of causewayed enclosures at Kingsborough Manor attests to the importance of the island's high ground during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Later prehistoric, Roman and medieval occupation has been found by archaeologists in advance of development at Neat's Court and St Clements CofE Primary School in Leysdown.Vikings
In the year 835, Viking invaders attacked Sheppey. It is the first known account of a major Viking raid in Southern England. Sheppey would go on to suffer from subsequent raids, its vulnerable coastal monasteries providing a convenient target for the Danes.In 855, Sheppey as part of the kingdom of Wessex, became the winter camp of an occupying Viking force, presumably the raiders from prior attacks. Raiding continued in the springtime, with Sheppey's minsters being used by the invaders as feasting halls or general headquarters.
In 1016, Cnut the Great of Denmark and his forces are reported to have retreated to the Island of Sheppey rather than face King Edmund Ironside in battle during the winter. King Edmund gathered his forces during Lent and mounted an attack on Cnut shortly after Easter.
Shurland Hall
, near Eastchurch, is named after its first owners, the De Shurland family. In 1188 Adam de Shurland possessed a mill with more than of mixed land, mostly marsh with a small meadow: he also let a number of cottages thereabouts.Sir Robert de Shurland, a member of the family, served in the Anglo-Scottish wars, including the siege of Caerlaverock, where he was knighted; and shortly afterwards obtained a charter of free warren for his manor of Ufton, in the parish of Tunstall. He fought on the rebel baronial side at the Battle of Boroughbridge, was captured, and was held for over a year in the Tower of London. On his release, he was appointed mayor of Bordeaux.
A curious legend surrounds Sir Robert. It is said that he killed a priest, and resolved to ask the king for a pardon. Mounted on horseback, he swam out to the Nore, where the king's ship was anchored, and gained forgiveness. On his return, he met an old woman who predicted that the horse that had helped save his life would be the cause of his death. To defy the prophecy, Sir Robert killed his horse; but later encountering its bones, he kicked them in scorn, only for a shard to pierce his foot, causing an infection from which he died. The tale takes elements from Italian, Slavic and Icelandic folklore. It was greatly popularised in a version published in 1837 by Richard Barham, as one of his Ingoldsby Legends.
Sir Robert died in 1324 leaving as his heir a daughter Margaret, who married William, son of Alexander Cheyne of Patrixbourne. To William passed the manor of Shurland. It remained in possession of the Cheyne family until the sixteenth century when it was sold by Sir Henry Cheyne. During the First World War troops were billeted at the Great Hall, and it suffered considerable damage as a result.
Shurland Hall is a Grade II listed building. In 2006 a grant of £300,000 was made by English Heritage to restore the hall's façade. The Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust carried out the restoration work which was completed in 2011. The house was put on the open market for £1.5 million, and was sold.
Dutch occupation of 1667
Sheppey is one of few parts of what is now the United Kingdom to have been lost to a foreign power since William the Conqueror's invasion in 1066. This was in June 1667, when a Dutch fleet sailing up the Thames Estuary for the Medway captured the fort at Sheerness. The fort at the time was incomplete and the garrison underfed and unpaid, so resistance to the heavily armed Dutch Navy was hardly enthusiastic. Pepys, then secretary of the Navy Board, described Sheerness as lost "after two or three hours' dispute". The Dutch quickly overran and occupied the whole island for several days before withdrawing. Prior to leaving, the Dutch took supplies, ammunition and guns, then burned everything that was combustible.Capture of James II & VII
Three miles across the Swale lies Whitstable. The Swale channel was the point of departure selected by James II, when departing in some haste "from the Protestant deliverance of the nation" by William of Orange in December 1688.A hoy having been chartered, the fugitive king landed at Elmley, only to be mobbed by local fishermen. They thought such a noble on such a humble vessel was the locally hated Jesuit Edward Petre and so took his money, watch and coronation ring. At length he was recognised by one of the assailants and the group took him in custody to Faversham, where he was detained.
Bluetown Heritage Centre
hosts the history and Heritage Centre for the Isle of Sheppey. The Heritage Centre contains memorabilia and artefacts pertinent to the Sheppey's history, including displays on aviation, maritime, wartime activities, and island history and offers guided walks of Sheppey Isle and Bluetown.The present Heritage Centre is on the site of two earlier establishments. Originally called the "New Inn", in 1868 the site became "The Royal Oxford Music Hall". The following year the building, which is situated a few doors down from the Bluetown court house, became the Criterion Public House, with a music hall called the "palace of varieties" situated immediately to its rear. In 1879 the building was replaced with a brick structure.
On 5 June 1917 the Criterion was badly damaged by a German air raid. Shrapnel marks from the attack can still be seen in the dockyard wall opposite the building. After the air raid, the building was re-built in its present form retaining some of its original features. After a variety of other uses, the site became the Heritage Centre in January 2009. A special exhibition in 2014 commemorated the centenary of the First World War.
Maritime history
, requiring the River Medway as an anchorage for his navy, ordered that the mouth of the river should be protected by a small fort. Garrison Fort was built in 1545.Sheerness is a commercial port and main town of the Isle of Sheppey and owes much to its origins, as a Royal Naval dockyard town. Samuel Pepys established the Royal Navy Dockyard in the 17th century. Sheerness was the focus of an attack by the Dutch Navy in June 1667, when 72 hostile ships compelled the little "sandspit fort" there to surrender and landed a force which for a short while occupied the town. Samuel Pepys at Gravesend remarked in his diary "we do plainly at this time hear the guns play" and in fear departed to Brampton in Huntingdonshire.
The dockyard served the Royal Navy until 1960 and has since developed into one of the largest and fastest expanding ports in the UK. The Port of Sheerness contains at least one Grade II listed building, the Old Boat House. Built in 1866, it is the first multi-storey iron framed industrial building recorded in the UK. Decorated with ornate ironwork, it features operating rails extending the length of the building, for the movement of stores, much like a modern crane.
A large ferry terminal was built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway at Queenborough Pier in 1876 and operated a nightly service to Flushing in the Netherlands, as well as a German mail service. These services ceased during the First World War; the terminal was used for military traffic. The small port was closed and dismantled in the 1930s. A passenger, car and lorry service was operated by Olau Line from 1974 to 1994.
The dockyard and port at Sheerness today are a significant feature of the Isle of Sheppey's economy, which includes the extensive export/import of motor vehicles, and a large steel works, with extensive railway fixtures. The island is, however, suffering from an economic recession and these industries are not as extensive as they once were.
The area immediately outside the dockyard was occupied by dockyard workers, who built wooden houses and decorated them with Admiralty blue paint illegally acquired from the dockyard. This area was, and still is, known as Blue Town, though it is now mostly occupied by the Sheerness Steel complex.
Beyond Blue Town, an outlying residential area overlooking the sea was chiefly designed for various government officials. This area became known as Mile Town because it is one mile from Sheerness.
About 200 shipwrecks are recorded around the coast of Sheppey, the most famous being the SS Richard Montgomery, a liberty ship loaded with bombs and explosives that grounded on sandbanks during the Second World War. plans were discussed with a view to removing the threat from the Montgomery. These include encasing the ship in concrete or removing the bombs; no firm decision has been made. New research commissioned by the Government in 2005–06 suggested that the threat has passed and that constant surveillance should ensure the safety of the immediate community.