Isle of Sheppey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the W. Somerset Maugham play, see Sheppey (play).
| Isle of Sheppey | |
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| Population | 37,852 |
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| OS grid reference | |
| District | Swale |
| Shire county | Kent |
| Region | South East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | SHEERNESS |
| Postcode district | ME11/ME12 |
| Dial code | 01795 |
| Police | Kent |
| Fire | Kent |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| UK Parliament | Sittingbourne and Sheppey |
| European Parliament | South East England |
| List of places: UK • England • Kent | |
The Isle of Sheppey is a small (36 square miles, 94 km²) island off the northern coast of Kent, England in the Thames Estuary, some 38 miles (62km) to the east of central London. Sheppey is derived from the ancient Saxon "Sceapige", meaning isle of sheep, and even today the extensive marshes which make up a considerable proportion of the island provide grazing for large flocks of them. The island, like much of North Kent, comprises London Clay and is a plentiful source of fossils.
The land mass referred to as Sheppey consists of three main islands: Sheppey, the Isle of Harty and the Isle of Elmley (it was once known as 'The Isles of Sheppey', before the channels separating them silted up), but the marshy nature of the land to the south of the island means that it is so crossed by channels and drains as to consist of a multitude of islands. The ground is mainly low-lying, but at Minster rises to about 165ft.
Some Sheppey inhabitants like to call themselves Swampies, a term that began as, and for some people remains, an insult; for others it has become a term of endearment or a phrase for reinforcing identity.
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[edit] The Swale
Sheppey is separated from the mainland by a channel called the Swale. In common with the Wantsum Channel separating the Isle of Thanet from the mainland to the east; and Yantlet Creek at the Isle of Grain these were used in ancient times to allow shipping to reach ports such as Chatham and London without encountering the bad weather from the North Sea.
[edit] Ferries
Three ferries have operated between the mainland and the isle: one to the west, called the King's Ferry; one at Elmley; and another, giving access from Faversham, the Harty Ferry. All had long histories: particularly the latter (see external link below). None operates today: the Harty Ferry ceased operation at the start of the First World War. But the slipways at Harty and Elmley can still be seen today. That at Harty is below the Ferry House Inn (the landlord owns the ferry rights), while seeing the one at Elmley requires a walk of about a mile and a half from the RSPB car park. Additionally the South Eastern Railway operated a connecting passenger ferry to Sheerness from Port Victoria railway terminus on the Grain peninsula for some years. Several ferry services to Southend have also been tried but proved short-lived. A number of continental ferry services have operated from the Isle of Sheppey.
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 (Vlissingen) in Holland, as well as a German mail service. These services ceased during the First World War but it was then used for military traffic. The port there was closed and dismantled in the 1930s. A passenger, car and lorry ferry operated to Vlissingen (Flushing) from Sheerness through the 1980s and 1990s, but there has been no ferry service of any kind in recent years.
[edit] Bridges
During the reign of Edward I, according to the historian Charles Igglesden, a bridge connected Sheppey to the mainland at Elmley. It was called the Tremsethg Bridge but was lost in a tidal wave and never replaced.
In much more modern times, the Kingsferry Bridge (replacing the ferry) has been built. There have been four bridges, each having to be built to allow passage along the navigable waterway to The Swale:
- July 19, 1860: The London, Chatham and Dover Railway built the first bridge 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.
- November 6, 1906: The South Eastern and Chatham Railway replaced the first bridge with one having a "rolling lift" design. It was originally worked by hand, but later by electricity.
- October 1959: A lifting bridge was installed, able to lift both the road and the railway line to allow ships to pass beneath. (Information on the bridge from Railways of the Southern Region Geoffrey Body (PSL Field Guide 1884)
- May 2006:The Sheppey crossing was completed and opened on 3 July. This four-lane road bridge rises to a height of 20m 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.
[edit] Tunnel
A foot-tunnel, now placed out of use, exists between Sheerness Docks and the Isle of Grain.[verification needed]
[edit] Sheppey history
[edit] Shurland Hall
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 a 1,000 acres (4 km²) of mixed land, mostly marsh with a small meadow: he also let a number of cottages thereabouts.
A curious tale surrounds a 14th-century member of the family, Sir Robert de Shurland. According to legend, Sir Robert killed a monk and resolved to ask the King for a pardon. In 1327 he rode to where the King's ship was anchored, off the Isle of Sheppey, and gained forgiveness. Returning, he met a witch who said that de Shurland's horse, Grey Dolphin, which had borne him so bravely to the ship, would be the death of him. Sir Robert immediately killed the horse and cut off its head. A year later Sir Robert was walking along the shore when a shard of the horse's bone pierced his foot. Blood poisoning set in and Sir Robert died.
Henry VIII visited the hall; about this time it became the family home of William Cheney (1453–87), whose son Thomas was a Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
In the First World War troops were billeted at the great hall, but it suffered considerable damage as a result. There has been no record of anyone living in the hall since. It is a Grade II listed building and awaits reconstruction by English Heritage. Planning applications have been made to use part of the site for housing.
A grant of £300,000 has been made to restore the fascade of the building by English Heritage (2006)
[edit] Capture of James II
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.
[edit] Maritime history
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. Henry VIII, 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 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.
The dockyard and fort 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 major 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 works.
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 exposives that grounded on sand banks during the Second World War. As of 2004 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 yet been made.
New research commisisoned by the Government in 2005-06 has suggested that the threat has passed and that constant surveillance should ensure the safety of the immediate community.
[edit] Local government
From 1894 to 1968, Sheppey contained the Queenborough municipal borough, Sheerness urban district and Sheppey Rural District (consisting of the civil parishes of Eastchurch, Elmley, Harty, Leysdown on Sea, Minster-in-Sheppey and Warden). 1968 saw all these merged to form a single Queenborough-in-Sheppey municipal borough covering the entire Isle. [1] In 1974 the area was merged with districts on the mainland to form the Swale district.
[edit] Early aviation
The isle has a long history of aviation development in England. It was home to Lord Brabazon's Royal Aero Club which formed in Leysdown in 1901 to popularise balloon-flying. The club took to the aeroplane with relish, and in July 1909 the Short Brothers established Shellbeach aerodrome on nearby marshland to accommodate six Wright Flyers, moving a few kilometres the next year to Eastchurch where a new aerodrome had been built for the club.
The Eastchurch airfield played a significant role in the history of British aviation from 1909 when Frank McClean acquired Stonepits Farm, on the marshes across from Leysdown, converting the land into an airfield for members of the Aero Club of Great Britain.
The Short Brothers, Horace, Eustace and Oswald, built aircraft at Battersea to be tested at the site; later Moore-Brabazon, Professor Huntington, Charles S Rolls and Cecil Grace all visited and used the flying club's services. Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville came to the Isle of Sheppey to visit the new flying grounds of the Aero Club. In 1909 Moore-Brabazon made the first live cargo flight by fixed-wing aircraft, by tying a waste-paper basket to a wing strut of his Shorts-built Wright aircraft. Then, using it as a "cargo hold", he airlifted one small pig.
The Eastchurch airfield was also the site, in July, 1911, of the Gordon Bennett Trophy air race, attended by flyers from all over the world, and won that year by the American pilot C T Weymann.
A stained glass window in the south side of All Saints' Church, Eastchurch (built in 1432), was dedicated to Rolls and Grace, who were killed in July and December of 1910 respectively.
Sheppey Heritage Group has established a Flying Start project (2004) to commerate the centenary of flying in the UK and has won an initial Lottery award to enable it to bid for a further £2-£3 million.
[edit] Sheppey today
The largest town on the island is Sheerness. Other towns include Minster, which has a pebble beach, and Leysdown-on-Sea, which has a coarse sandy one. The whole north coast is dotted with caravan parks and holiday homes; there is also a naturist beach. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has a site at Elmley Marshes.
There are three prisons on the Island, all located to the south of Eastchurch: HMP Elmley, HMP Standford Hill, and HMP Swaleside. The total inmate population is in the region of 2,200.
In the 2001 census it had a resident population of 37,852, many of whom commute via the Sheerness-Sittingbourne rail link.
[edit] Local radio
Sheppey people have been campaigning for local radio in the area for some time.
- 87.9 SFM
SFM broadcasts on 87.9 FM — its next broadcast is due in early 2007. The group, headed by Programme Director Peter Flynn, is seeking the advertisement of a local commercial radio licence for the whole of the Swale area, and has been campaigning since August 2002. Check out 87.9 SFM for more details.
- BRFM
BRFM, based in Minster, has won the government licence to bring a smaller community radio station to the Isle of Sheppey only. It plans to launch in the fourth quarter of 2006 but is reliant on voluntary contributions: by law, only 50% of its income can come from local advertising. The station will broadcast on 95.6FM and will be known as Bridge 95.6 BRFM. BRFM will broadcast to Sheppey only (under its strict licensing conditions) from studios in Queenborough and Minster on the Isle of Sheppey. BRFM
BRFM is now broadcasting 24/7 as a local community radio station
- Swale Local Radio
This station had several outings in the past but is now backing BRFM
- The Link FM/Kingsferry FM
Previous radio stations aiming to serve Sheppey and Swale. Many of the members have since gone on to join BR-fm.
[edit] References
- The Ingoldsby Country: Charles G Harper 1906.
- Sheppey Gazette
- Sheerness Times Guardian
[edit] See also
Sheppey Corner, Stanton, Gloucestershire/ Worcestershire
[edit] External links
- Swale Borough Council's Sheppey Tourism Page
- Unofficial Sheppey Guide 'Sheppey Scum'
- Sheppey Access
- Sheppey Link site
- History of Harty Ferry
- History of Sheerness Dockyard
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with its suburbs, villages, towns and parishes: |
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Bapchild • Badlesmere • Bobbing • Borden • Boughton under Blean • Bredgar • Brogdale • Buckland • Chestnut Street • Conyer • Doddington • Dunkirk • Eastchurch • Eastling • Elmley • Faversham • Faversham Without • Goodnestone • Graveney • Hartlip • Harty • Hearts Delight • Hernhill • Isle of Sheppey • Iwade • Kemsley • Leaveland • Leysdown • Leysdown on Sea • Lower Halstow • Lynsted • Milstead • Milton Regis • Minster-in-Sheppey • Murston • Newington • Newnham • Norton • Oad Street • Oare • Ospringe • Queenborough • Queenborough-in-Sheppey • Rodmersham • Rushenden • Selling • Sheldwich • Sheerness • Sittingbourne • Sittingbourne and Milton • Stalisfield • Stone • Teynham • Throwley • Tonge • Tunstall • Warden |
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| The Borough of Swale List of places in Kent |
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