Paradise lost

The Isle of Sheppey lies in the mouth of the Thames tucked up along the northern coastline of Kent, south-eastern England. Known to the Romans as insula orivum, and accessible for centuries only by ferry, the small Isle waited until 1860 for the construction of its first permanent bridge, over the River Swale to the mainland. It contains an uneasy mixture of lowland agricultural farmland, tourism, and commercial shipping activities, all divided by a diagonal east-to-west line of low hills. Elmley Marshes, situated on the southern side of the Isle, attract thousands of ducks, geese, and wading birds in the winter. Further to the east lies the Swale National Nature Reserve, a mosaic of grazing land and salt marshes that is home to short-eared owls and hen harriers. Fine beaches dotted along the northern coastline near to the traditional seaside town of Leysdown-on-Sea draw tourists whose spending boosts the local economy. Discovery of a deep-water channel off the north-west coast saw the construction of a Royal Navy dockyard at Sheerness in 1669. The new dockyard was replaced 290 years later by the commercially successful Port of Sheerness, which benefits from the capacity to accommodate large modern ships regardless of the tides. Geology and the sea have combined to shape the cultural and economic aspects of the Isle from its earliest days. In the early part of the nineteenth century, pyrite—iron sulfide—collected from the beaches and foreshore provided a source of green vitriol dye for the tanning and textiles industries. At around the same time, a small industry flourished excavating cement stones (septaria) for the manufacture of Parker’s (or Roman) cement. But the supply of septarian nodules on the beaches was soon exhausted and, with the emergence of more economic means of producing cement, the industry collapsed. The fleeting septaria industry mirrors the fleeting existence of Sheppey, for the Isle is shrinking fast as wave action erodes metres of its cliffs each year. Ultimately, in no more than a geological instant, the Isle of Sheppey and its inhabitants will be gone.