- 01795 510351
The Isle of Sheppey, called by the Saxons as SCEAPIGE ‘Sheep Island’ is 9 miles long and 4 miles wide, situated in the Thames Estuary at the mouth of the Medway.
It’s only 42 miles from central London, separated from the rest of the county of Kent by a narrow arm of the sea, called the Swale.
Sheppey, once mainly known for sheep-rearing as its name implies, falls into two regions – the northern half, built up and developed, which includes the towns of Sheerness, Minster, Queenborough and Leysdown, and the southern part, mainly consisting of marshes and the occasional tiny hamlet.
The Isle of Sheppey dates back to the Bronze Age, through to the Iron Age and then Romans until they left around 400 AD.
Around 675 the Anglo Saxon queen, Seaxburga founded a monastery for seventy seven nuns and built Minster Abbey.
Between 1360 and 1370, Holy Trinity Church was built as part of a new model town set out for Edward III by the Kings master mason who was constructing a Castle at the same time.
The Queenborough Castle was built (1360 -1368) overlooking the Swale.
Throughout history, Kings and Queens visited including Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I.
Queenborough was at the height of its prosperity in Elizabeth I’s reign when the town was a major shipping port of wool. It also had connections with Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton.
The Isle of Sheppey was the birthplace of aviation in the UK. In 1909 the Short brothers established the first British aircraft factory and built their very first aircraft in our neighbouring town of Shellness.
By August 1909, the company was employing 80 craftsmen and building aircraft for such aviators as Charles Rolls who was flying Wright bi-planes built by the Short Brothers under licence to the Wright Brothers, the American pioneers. As the club grew, a large area of land was purchased below the village of Eastchurch, this extra space allowed them to build a real factory of corrugated iron and to continue to build aircraft for the Aero Club members, thus making Eastchurch one of the major centres for British aeronautical development.
By 1911 the first naval aviators began training in Eastchurch, which became the first Royal Naval Air Station. The station served with distinction in the war that soon followed, as it did again through the Second World War, until its closure in the late 1940s.
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.
19 July 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.
6 November 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: Kingsferry Bridge, a lifting bridge was installed, able to lift both the road and the railway line to allow ships to pass beneath.
May 2006: The Sheppey Crossing was completed and opened on 3 July. This four-lane road bridge rises to a height of 95 feet (29m) at mean high water springs above the Swale, and carries the A249 trunk road.
The Sheppey Crossing is not open to pedestrians, bicycles, or horses, and these continue to use the older bridge, as does the railway line to Sheerness.
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. 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.
Samuel Pepys established the Royal Navy Dockyard in the 17th century, where warships were stocked and repaired until its closure in 1960.
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.