Wallasea Island lies in

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 ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is bounded to the north by the

River Crouch The River Crouch is a small river that flows entirely through the English county of Essex. The distance of the Navigation between Holliwell Point which is north of Foulness Island and Battlesbridge is 17.5 Miles, i.e. 15.21 Nautical Miles. Ro ...

, to the south east by the

River Roach A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

, and to the west by

Paglesham Pool Paglesham is a village and civil parish in the north east of the Rochford Rural District, Essex. The parish includes two hamlets of Eastend and Churchend, which are situated near the River Crouch and ''Paglesham Creek''. It is part of the ''Roa ...

and the narrow Paglesham Creek. The population of the Island is included in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Canewdon Canewdon is a village and civil parish in the Rochford district of Essex, England. The village is located approximately northeast of the town of Rochford, while the parish extends for several miles on the southern side of the River Crouch. Can ...

. Much of the island is

farmland Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

, and wheat is the main crop. A small settlement at its western end is linked by road to the mainland and is home to a

campsite A campsite, also known as a campground or camping pitch, is a place used for overnight stay in an outdoor area. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight using te ...

and

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships o ...

. It is linked by a

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

Burnham-on-Crouch Burnham-on-Crouch is a town and civil parish in the Maldon District of Essex in the East of England. It lies on the north bank of the River Crouch. It is one of Britain's leading places for yachting. The civil parish extends east of the town t ...

. It is possible to walk for about around most of the sea wall. The south side of the island is one of the most tranquil places in Essex, where wildlife typical of open farmland such as skylarks, corn buntings and hares can be observed. Close by, on the opposite side of the estuary of the

Foulness Island Foulness Island () is a closed island on the east coast of Essex in England, which is separated from the mainland by narrow creeks. In the 2001 census, the usually resident population of the civil parish was 212, living in the settlements of Ch ...

and

Potton Island Potton Island is a sparsely populated island west of Foulness in Essex, England. It is connected to the mainland by a swing bridge with a traffic light system, and the road leads to Great Wakering. Unlike some of the other nearby islands which w ...

are visible.

History

The name is said to derive from Old English "wala" meaning "foreigner" and the name is tautological. Almost nothing is known about the early history of Wallasea. At the end of the last ice age it was almost certainly dry land like most of the North Sea basin. Rising sea levels are thought to have deposited the silt and sand which (together with older clays) underlie the island's soil. Several archaeological features have been recorded on the south and east edges of the island, these are the "red hills" typical of the

Roman period The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

and were probably relics of a process of extraction of salt from sea water. Thirteenth-century records mention several places on Wallasea such as Lower Barn and Sherwoods. It is likely that Wallasea was used for grazing at that time and there may have been some arable land too. The origins of the various farms is unclear, though it is known there was a farmhouse at Grapnells as far back as 1546. Christopher Saxton, Saxton's map of 1576 shows that creeks divided Wallasea into three separate islands, and this is confirmed by Camden's description of 1551. In the 15th century these lands were drained by Dutch settlers for agricultural use with the construction of the original sea wall. The population of Wallasea was at its highest in the mid to late 19th century. In 1875 there were 135 inhabitants and there were 13 houses. A school was opened in 1879 and lasted for 20 years. Import of cheap American wheat resulted in an agricultural depression starting in 1875. Most of the island's population left and Wallasea reverted to pasture. Much of the island was ploughed up during the First World War when the import of grain was made more difficult by U-boat, German U-boats. Bumper crops of wheat were grown in this period. The island was also under the plough in the Second World War. Over the centuries Wallasea has been flooded in a number of storms. The most catastrophic inundation was in North Sea flood of 1953, 1953 after which large sections of sea wall had to be rebuilt. The eastern end of the island was one of the last places in the UK to be drained of floodwater. The storm swept away the Tyle House, sometimes known as the Devil's House, which according to legend was the abode of a demon.

Wallasea Wetlands

On July 4, 2006, a £7.5 million project to convert part of the island's farmland into mudflats and salt marsh was completed by bulldozing 300m of the sea defence wall, at the points of maximum pressure on the estuary. An area of 115 hectares was flooded, which is evolving into wetland, mudflats, saline lagoons and seven artificial islands. The wetlands are intended to provide winter grounds for wading birds, and ease flood problems on the River Crouch. In December 2008, the RSPB submitted a planning application to Essex County Council for a £12 million scheme to break open Wallasea's remaining sea walls and turn the rest of the island's farmland into a wetland bird reserve. In September 2012 it was announced that work had begun on the ''Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project'' under which around 4.5 million tonnes of earth shall be transported to Wallasea Island, via over 1500 separate trips, many by rail and water, to help create the nature reserve from London's Crossrail tunnel (Elizabeth line) excavation.

References

Sources

*Most of the history has been summarised from:- "Wallasea Island; the history and archaeology of a marshland landscape", by Ellen Heppell, ''Essex Archaeology and History'', 35 (2004) 98–113
BBC News: "New £5m haven for wading birds"
4 March 2004
BBC News: "Farmland becomes wildlife habitat"
19 March 2005
BBC News: "Huge marine wetland starts life"
4 July 2006
BBC News: "Farmland yields to major wetland"
7 October 2007

Notes

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