The Swale is a tidal channel of the

Thames estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...

that separates the

Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derived ...

from the rest of Kent. On its banks is a biological

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

which stretches from

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separa ...

Whitstable Whitstable () is a town on the north coast of Kent adjoining the convergence of the Swale Estuary and the Greater Thames Estuary in southeastern England, north of Canterbury and west of Herne Bay. The 2011 Census reported a population of 32 ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. It is also a

Ramsar Ramsar may refer to: * Places so named: ** Ramsar, Mazandaran, city in Iran ** Ramsar, Rajasthan, village in India * Eponyms of the Iranian city: ** Ramsar Convention concerning wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran ** Ramsar site, wetland listed in ...

internationally important wetland site and a

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cert ...

under the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Parts of it are a

Nature Conservation Review ''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initial ...

site, Grade I, National Nature Reserves, a

Kent Wildlife Trust Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT) is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom that was founded in 1958, previously known as the Kent Trust for Nature Conservation. It aims to "work with people to restore, save and improve our natural spaces" and t ...

nature reserve and a Local Nature Reserve.

History

The name "Swale" is

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

in origin, and is believed to mean "swirling, rushing river", or "rushing water".

Peri-glacial period

At these times the Swale was a gully from what had been a sea channel in very warm periods. Namely before the

Strait of Dover The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (french: Pas de Calais - ''Strait of Calais''), is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, separating Great Britain from continent ...

had swept away so much swampy land, accentuated by sea levels being lower, even to beyond the end of the ice age, i.e. in the mid seventh millennium BC, the coasts of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

and

stretched much further into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. Sheppey formed part of mainland Britain. The Swale was a valley opening eastwards. As sea-levels rose again, water occupied its whole length. It and the very mouth of the

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

divide the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland.

Roman Warm Period

When the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

arrived in Britain, the Swale was much wider, with one part of the Isle of Sheppey — now called the

Isle of Harty An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English. However, there is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle or its difference, so they are considered synonyms. Isle may refer to: Geography * Is ...

or Harty — a separate island.

Former ferries

Two public ferries crossed the Swale. One operated between Oare and Harty, and the other between

Murston Murston is a suburb of Sittingbourne in Kent, England. It is about 1 mile north-east of central Sittingbourne, on the east bank of the Milton Creek. History According to Edward Hasted in 1798, it was once called 'Muston'. The parish contains about ...

(near Sittingbourne) and

Elmley Elmley is the local name for the Isle of Elmley, part of the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, England. It was also the name of a very late 19th century industrial village on the isle. Edward Hasted describes, in 1798, the isle as two-eighths of the Isle of ...

(another former hamlet and essentially attached islet). Harty is no longer separate but the marshlands gradually encroaching delineate it.

Dredging and channel traffic

The channel needs constant dredging for busy recreational and light vessel use.

Bridges

The Swale is crossed at its western end by two bridges: the

Kingsferry Bridge The Kingsferry Bridge is a combined road and railway vertical-lift bridge which connects the Isle of Sheppey to mainland Kent in South East England. The seven-span bridge has a central lifting span which allows ships to pass. In 1860, the firs ...

and the later

Sheppey Crossing The Sheppey Crossing is a bridge which carries the A249 road across The Swale (a tidal strait of the Thames Estuary), linking the Isle of Sheppey with the mainland of Kent. The four-lane crossing measures 21.5 m (71 feet) in width, at a height ...

Nature

The Swale forms both a National Nature Reserve and a

: the

eel grass Eelgrass is a common name for several plants and may refer to: * ''Zostera'', marine eelgrass * ''Vallisneria ''Vallisneria'' (named in honor of Antonio Vallisneri) is a genus of freshwater aquatic plant, commonly called eelgrass, tape grass o ...

, Ray's knotgrass, white

seakale ''Crambe maritima'', common name sea kale, seakale or crambe, is a species of halophytic (salt-tolerant) flowering plant in the genus ''Crambe'' of the family Brassicaceae. It grows wild along the coasts of mainland Europe and the British Isl ...

glasswort The glassworts are various succulent, annual halophytic plants, that is, plants that thrive in saline environments, such as seacoasts and salt marshes. The original English glasswort plants belong to the genus ''Salicornia'', but today the glass ...

s and

golden samphire The golden samphire (''Limbarda crithmoides'') is a perennial coastal species, which may be found growing on salt marsh or sea cliffs across western and southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Golden samphire has a tufted habit, and the plant may ...

support rare and uncommon migrant

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

and

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

s, including the

Essex emerald The Essex emerald (''Thetidia smaragdaria'') is a moth of the family Geometridae. The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1787 as ''Phalaena smaragdaria''. It is distributed throughout the Palearctic region with records ...

, the ground lackey, the

clouded yellow butterfly ''Colias'' is a genus of butterfly, butterflies in the family (biology), family Pieridae. They are often called clouded yellows; the North American name "sulphurs" is elsewhere used for Coliadinae in general. The closest living relative is the g ...

and rare

hawk-moth The Sphingidae are a family of moths (Lepidoptera) called sphinx moths, also colloquially known as hawk moths, with many of their caterpillars known as “hornworms”; it includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, but ...

s. Since 1968, it has also been a

Birds

The Swale provides habitats for the following birds: *

Pied avocet The pied avocet (''Recurvirostra avosetta'') is a large black and white wader in the avocet and stilt family, Recurvirostridae. They breed in temperate Europe and across the Palearctic to Central Asia then on to the Russian Far East. It is a mig ...

at least 17 percent of Great Britain's breeding population *

Marsh harrier The marsh harriers are birds of prey of the harrier subfamily. They are medium-sized raptors and the largest and broadest-winged harriers. Most of them are associated with marshland and dense reedbeds. They are found almost worldwide, excluding ...

at least 15 percent of Great Britain's breeding population *

Mediterranean gull The Mediterranean gull (''Ichthyaetus melanocephalus'') is a small gull. The scientific name is from Ancient Greek. The genus ''Ichthyaetus'' is from ''ikhthus'', "fish", and ''aetos'', "eagle", and the specific ''melanocephalus'' is from ''mel ...

Bar-tailed godwit The bar-tailed godwit (''Limosa lapponica'') is a large and strongly migratory wader in the family Scolopacidae, which feeds on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries. It has distinctive red breeding plumage, long legs, an ...

Eurasian golden plover The European golden plover (''Pluvialis apricaria''), also known as the European golden-plover, Eurasian golden plover, or just the golden plover within Europe, is a largish plover. This species is similar to two other golden plovers: the America ...

Hen harrier The hen harrier (''Circus cyaneus'') is a bird of prey. It breeds in Eurasia. The term "hen harrier" refers to its former habit of preying on free-ranging fowl. It migrates to more southerly areas in winter. Eurasian birds move to southern Eur ...

Ringed plover The common ringed plover or ringed plover (''Charadrius hiaticula'') is a small plover that breeds in Arctic Eurasia. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from ...

* Black-tailed godwit *

Grey plover The grey plover or black-bellied plover (''Pluvialis squatarola'') is a large plover breeding in Arctic regions. It is a long-distance migrant, with a nearly worldwide coastal distribution when not breeding. Taxonomy The grey plover was forma ...

knot A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a ''hitch'' fastens a rope to another object; a ' ...

* pintail *

Common redshank The common redshank or simply redshank (''Tringa totanus'') is a Eurasian wader in the large family Scolopacidae. Taxonomy The common redshank was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ...

Northern shoveler The northern shoveler (; ''Spatula clypeata''), known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and across most of North America, wintering in southern Euro ...

References

External links

English Nature pageDescription of Special Protection Area
*Map sources for {{DEFAULTSORT:Swale, The Thames Estuary Channels of England Special Protection Areas in England Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Kent Nature Conservation Review sites

The Swale The Swale is a tidal channel of the Thames estuary that separates the Isle of Sheppey from the rest of Kent. On its banks is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest which stretches from Sittingbourne to Whitstable in Kent. It is al ...

Ramsar sites in England Straits of England National nature reserves in England