Foulness Island

Foulness Island lies in the Thames estuary off Essex, cut off from the mainland by narrow creeks. The land is mostly flat farmland protected by a high sea wall. Two small settlements, Churchend and Courtsend, sit at the northern tip where the church, pub and post office have all closed in recent years. The island has been a military site since 1914 and is still run by QinetiQ for the Ministry of Defence. It holds international importance for migrating and breeding birds such as pied avocets. In 1953 the North Sea flood covered almost the whole island and killed two people. Before 1922 the only way on was the ancient Broomway, a tidal path older than Roman roads, or by boat. Visitors who gain access find open fields of wheat, oats and barley divided by drainage ditches. The land was once divided into eleven or twelve separate marshes, each with its own earthen wall topped with brushwood. Saltings have been reclaimed over centuries by building new walls around silt banks that rise above the tide line. The island’s name comes from Old English for ‘bird headland’, recalling its long use by wildfowl.