Island 32 - Mersea, Essex

Mersea Island is located in North East Essex between the Blackwater and the Colne Estuaries.  It is linked to the mainland by a causeway, known as The Strood, which is covered at very high tides for an hour or 2.  It is approximately 5 miles long by 2 miles wide.  The main settlements are the town of West Mersea and the village of East Mersea.

Mersea Island has been settled for 5,000 years.  The Celts produced pottery and salt there from 400 BC.  Romans settled on the island and it was possibly them who built The Strood.   The Roman town of Camulodunum (Colchester) is only 5 miles away.  There was a Roman villa near the site of St Peter and St Paul’s Church, the walls of which contain some Roman bricks and tiles.  Stone Age artefacts have also been found on the island.  The island is in a strategic location between the mouths of the Rivers Colne and Blackwater and the approach to Colchester.  In the 9th century it was attacked by Vikings from Denmark, it was captured by Parliamentary troops in 1648 during the English Civil War and in the 16th century it was fortified against an attack from France with large blockhouses with cannons. However the invasion never came.  It was fortified again with pillboxes during the Second World War.  During the Second World War East Mersea was used as a decoy or Starfish site.  Dummy lights and fires were used to attract bombers away from the naval base at Brightlingsea.
 

There is a museum at West Mersea, which contains information and artefacts about fishing, oysters, wildfowling, boatbuilding, natural history, social history and geology. 

Cudmore Grove Country Park is at East Mersea.  It has a long sandy beach, grassland and marshes.  There is a fee to park there.

 Well at West Mersea

 

 West Mersea Church
The church has some Anglo-Saxon features

 West Mersea - House Boats

 West Mersea looking towards Bradwell Nuclear Power Station

 Beach Huts at West Mersea

 St Edmunds Church, East Mersea
Sabine Baring Gould, the author of the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers and an eccentric writer and collector of folksongs was rector of East Mersea Church from 1871-1881.

 The Strood at low tide