page_title: Isle of Sheppey
section_title: Maritime history
hierarchical_section_title: Isle of Sheppey / Maritime history
caption_attribution_description: English: Author: Mark S Jobling
context_page_description: The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred 42 miles from central London. It has an area of 36 square miles. 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 continuous island. 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 250 feet 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.
context_section_description: 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 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 (1.6 km) 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. 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 been made.  New research commissioned 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.
  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 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.
caption: View towards Minster from Elmley Marshes
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