Denny Island

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For the small island in Chew Valley Lake, Somerset, see that page.

Denny Island (grid reference ST458810) is a small rocky island of 0.24 hectares (0.6 acres), with scrub vegetation, in the mouth of the River Severn. It is situated approximately three miles north of Portishead, midway between Redwick and Avonmouth. Its rocky southern foreshore marks the boundary between England and Wales, but the island itself is reckoned administratively to Monmouthshire, Wales. Its foreshore area changes dramatically according to the state of the tide, because tides in the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel are the second highest in the world, reaching 13.7 m (45 ft) at the spring equinox. If it is famous for anything, it is as a nesting-place for gulls, cormorants and other seabirds, which are regularly seen and ringed there.

It appears in the record for the first time as Dunye, in the charter recording the creation of the county of Bristol in 1373.^[1] This suggests that the name means, in Old English, 'island shaped like a down (i.e. a hill with a rounded profile)'.

It gives its name to the Denny Island Fault Zone, a part of the Avon-Solent Fracture zone.^[2]

Denny Island was, in 2004, subject to an unsuccessful appeal under Section 6(1) of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 against it appearing on a map of registered common land. ^[3]

[edit] References

^ Harding, N. Dermott (1930). Bristol charters, 1155-1373 p 154-5. Bristol Record Society.
^ Kellaway, G.A. (1996). "Discovery of the Avon-Solent Fracture Zone and its relationship to Bath hot springs.". Environmental Geology 28 (1): 34–9. doi:10.1007/s002540050076.
^ Appeal Decision (PDF). Planning Inspectorate, (November 2004). Retrieved on 2007-05-21.