Isle of Grain
Isle of Grain | |
---|---|
St James Church | |
Location within Kent | |
Population | 1,648 (2011)[1] |
OS grid reference | TQ8876 |
Civil parish |
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Unitary authority | |
Ceremonial county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | ROCHESTER |
Postcode district | ME3 |
Dialling code | 01634 |
Police | Kent |
Fire | Kent |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
UK Parliament | |
Isle of Grain (Old English Greon, meaning
History
Extract from the Topographical Dictionary of Great Britain and Ireland by John Gorton, 1833:[4]
"GRAINE, ISLE OF, co. Kent
"A parish in the Hundred of Hoo, lathe of Aylesford, opposite to Sheppey at the mouth of the Thames; it is about three miles and a half long, and two and a half broad and is formed by
spring tide; thus saving a distance of fourteen miles into the Medway, and avoiding the danger of going round by the Nore."
The severing of the road resulted in an inconclusive High Court case in 1824, and by 1835 the causeway had been reinstated. The goods route from the
In various warm years the incidence of "marsh fever" (malaria) was extremely high. Since the removal of livestock from marshy areas, the number of native mosquitoes has greatly declined, and Britain's last recorded outbreak of malaria was in 1918.
Yantlet Creek at the south of the Yantlet Line was the downstream limit of the City of London's ownership of the bed of the River Thames. It is marked by a London Stone beside the mouth of the creek. Its successor for navigation purposes, the Port of London Authority, also owns the river bed down to here but has navigation policing rights on a debatable area of estuary or sea as far as the seaside resort of Margate which has normal sea salinity.
The Isle of Grain was also the site of Grain Fort, built in the 1860s and used for coastal defence until the 1950s. The fort was almost completely demolished about 1960, leaving only the original earth rampart, complete with some tunnels running underground.
Until 1982 the south of the Isle was home to a major oil refinery. Construction of this facility for BP took from 1948 to 1952, and it suffered flooding almost immediately when the North Sea flood of 1953 breached the sea wall.
In the 1990s the refinery site was chosen for a purpose-built facility to make concrete lining segments for the Channel Tunnel. There was not the space to make the sections at the Shakespeare Cliff construction site near Folkestone at the tunnel's entrance, so the Isle of Grain was used because large quantities of granite aggregate could be delivered there by ship from Glensanda in Scotland, and the finished sections could then be transported by a pre-existing rail link to east Kent.[6] Following completion of the Channel Tunnel, the site is now part-occupied by London Thamesport, the UK's third largest container port. The remainder is allocated for industrial and warehousing use under the Thames Gateway project.
Next to the former BP site is
The Isle of Grain is the landing point for the BritNed undersea power cable between The Netherlands and the UK. It will also be the landing point for the NeuConnect interconnector linking the UK to Germany, planned for completion in 2028.
Settlements
An 1801 map shows that the ancient village of Grain was at one time called St James in the Isle of Grain. Like others in the Hundred of Hoo, the village was named after the dedication of its parish church; for example
Wallend is the other settlement, now uninhabited and contained within a fenced-off industrial site. The Medway Power Station now occupies the site.
Port Victoria
Local historian Alan Bignell gives this description of the new port and accompanying railway:
In the late 1870s the South Eastern Railway decided to promote a line through the (Hoo) district, with a view to competing for the traffic from London to
Gravesend ... to Stoke ... In the following year powers were obtained for an extension, (3.5 miles) long, to St James, in the Isle of Grain, where a deep-water pier was to be built on the Medway. A ferry was to connect the new pier with Sheerness ...]The railway was opened throughout on 11 September 1882. The pier was built for passenger traffic and Queen Victoria was a passenger. Bignell records that she "... took a rather curious fancy to Grain as a chosen departure point for trips to Germany" and there are claims that Port Victoria "was built essentially as a railway station at the end of a line from Windsor".[citation needed]
The project was not a success and the ferry service was withdrawn in 1901, and the pier upon which the station was located fell into disuse by 1931, with the station moving to a new site just inland. It was closed completely in 1951, and the 1.75 miles (2.82 km) of line taken up. The site is now occupied by industry, though the foundations of the pier are still visible at low tide to this day and are clearly visible on aerial photographs of the area at coordinates 51°26′00″N 0°42′11″E / 51.433253°N 0.703179°E.
From about 1912 an airship station,
Kingsnorth Power Station.But soon the course of the ship opens the entrance of the Medway, with its men-of-war moored in line, and the long wooden jetty of Port Victoria, with its few low buildings like the beginning of a hasty settlement upon a wild and unexplored shore. The famous Thames barges sit in brown clusters upon the water with an effect of birds floating upon a pond. —Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea
Airport proposal
A suggestion in 2003 to site a new London international airport to lie just west of Grain aroused a lot of local opposition, as well as from environmental groups such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
In November 2011 architects
National Air Traffic Services, commented that "the very worst spot you could put an airport is just about here ... We're a little surprised that none of the architects thought it worthwhile to have a little chat."[9]In an interim report on 17 December 2013, the Airports Commission shortlisted three options. Grain was not among them.[10] The Commission's final recommendations were released in July 2015. These stated that a Grain airport "had substantial disadvantages that collectively outweighed potential benefits", and the proposal was then abandoned.[11]
Sport
On 16 June 1857 the Isle was the site of a heavyweight championship prize-fight between William Perry (known as the Tipton Slasher) and Tom Sayers. The fight was won by Sayers who claimed the title of heavyweight champion of England.[12]
See also
References
- ^ a b "Civil parish population 2011". Archived from the original on 1 October 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
- ^ "Lieutenancies Act 1997". legislation.gov.uk. 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
- ^ "RSPB responds to future of aviation report". RSPB. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ A topographical dictionary of Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish and Welsh ... By John G. Gorton, George Newenham Wright (cited in Google Books)
- ^ Historic England. "Grain Tower (418676)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 11 December 2023.
- ^ Engineering the Channel Tunnel edited by Colin Kirkland, p.83.
- ^ Medway Messenger, 4 November 2011, pp=5–7
- ^ "Lord Foster to unveil ambitious airport plans". Kent Online. Medway Messenger. 4 November 2011. pp. 5, 7. Archived from the original on 28 April 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
- ^ Topham, Gwyn (13 April 2012). "Proposed Thames Hub Airport in 'Very Worst Spot' Say Air Traffic Controllers". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ^ Topham, Gwyn (17 December 2013). "Heathrow and Gatwick shortlisted for new runways". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "Final Report" (PDF). Airports Commission. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
- ^ Thoramby (1900). Boxers and their Battles. London: R.A. Everett & Co. pp. 292–340.
- Bibliography
- "Government decision holds key to Grain's £350m future" (15 January 2006) Kent on Sunday p15
- Bignell, Alan (1999). The Kent Village Book
External links
Media related to Isle of Grain at Wikimedia Commons
- EON press release On future plans for the Grain and Kingsnorth power stations.
- Disused Stations: Port Victoria station. Catford, Nick – 4 March 2007, accessed 7 April 2007