History of the Isle of Sheppey PDF Download

Author: Augustus A. Daly
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sheppey (Eng. : Island)
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Author: John Clancy
Publisher: History Press
ISBN: 9780750950466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The Isle of Sheppey, just 9 miles long and 4 miles wide, is situated in the Thames Estuary at the mouth of the Medway. It is a mysterious and ancient place, separated from the mainland by arm and of the sea known as The Swale. Sheppey, once mainly known for sheep-rearing as its name implies, falls into two regions--the northern half, built up and developed, which includes the towns of Sheerness, Minster, Queenborough, and Leysdown, and the southern part, mainly consisting of marshes and the occasional tiny hamlet. The island itself has a long and complex history. A Bronze Age settlement and a Saxon monastery at Minster both left their mark on the island, as did the Romans--although they did not settle permanently, they had a look-out point here. In later centuries Sheppey has also seen the construction of a naval dockyard at Sheerness, which would have become one to the foremost in the country if it had not flooded during construction, the founding of Britain's first cooperative society, the demolition of a castle that had been designed by the architect of Windsor Castle, the first purpose-built aircraft factory, and a recent development as a holiday destination. Sheerness is the most important town today, partly because of tourism, but also because of steel-making and the port--which served the Royal navy until 1960, and since then has become one the largest and fastest expanding ports in the U.K. Lavishly illustrated, The Story of Sheppey--informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking--will appeal to everyone who lives on or visits the island.

Author: Patrick Wright
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1912248751
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 783

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The story of Uwe Johnson, one of Germany's greatest and most-influential post-war writers, and how he came to live and work in Sheerness, Kent in the 1970s. Towards the end of 1974, a stranger arrived in the small town of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He could often be found sitting at the bar in the Napier Tavern, drinking lager and smoking Gauloises while flicking through the pages of the Kent Evening Post. "Charles" was the name he offered to his new acquaintances. But this unexpected immigrant was actually Uwe Johnson, originally from the Baltic province of Mecklenburg in the GDR, and already famous as the leading author of a divided Germany. What caused him to abandon West Berlin and spend the last nine years of his life in Sheerness, where he eventually completed his great New York novel Anniversaries in a house overlooking the outer reaches of the Thames Estuary? And what did he mean by detecting a "moral utopia" in a town that others, including his concerned friends, saw only as a busted slum on an island abandoned to "deindustrialisation" and a stranded Liberty ship full of unexploded bombs? Patrick Wright, who himself abandoned north Kent for Canada a few months before Johnson arrived, returns to the "island that is all the world" to uncover the story of the East German author's English decade, and to understand why his closely observed Kentish writings continue to speak with such clairvoyance in the age of Brexit. Guided in his encounters and researches by clues left by Johnson in his own "island stories", the book is set in the 1970s, when North Sea oil and joining the European Economic Community seemed the last hope for bankrupt Britain. It opens out to provide an alternative version of modern British history: a history for the present, told through the rich and haunted landscapes of an often spurned downriver mudbank, with a brilliant German answer to Robinson Crusoe as its primary witness.

Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473865298
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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The Isle of Sheppey, although not a heavily populated area, played an extremely important part in Great Britains war effort on the home front throughout the four and a half years of the First World War. In doing so, Sheppey provided protection for the Thames Estuary, the River Medway and the naval shipyards at both Sheerness and Chatham. Its defensive emplacements largely responsible for acquiring the nickname locally of the 'Barbed Wire Island.' One of its main claims to fame in relation to the years of the First World War would have undoubtedly been in relation to aviation. The island had been a hive of activity in relation to flying since the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Royal Aero Club came to Leysdown, making it the first airfield in England. What became Eastchurch Aerodrome was where the first pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service were trained, making it the first military flying school in the country. The Short brothers also had an aircraft factory at Eastchurch where they designed and built their own aircraft, some of which would be used during the First World War. The Isle of Sheppey also boasted another aircraft factory, which was situated at Shellbeach on the east coast of the island, an emergency landing strip at Harty on the south east side of the island, and a balloon station at Sheerness. The First World War certainly saw the Isle of Sheppey rise to the occasion and add to its long and illustrious military history. The part it played went a long way in enhancing the islands reputation of having a dogged determination to do what needed to be done for the greater good in the nations time of need.

Author:
Publisher: YouGuide Ltd
ISBN: 1837049971
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Author: Graeme Gleaves
Publisher: Pen and Sword Transport
ISBN: 1399095102
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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The Isle of Sheppey sits just off the north coast of Kent, where the Medway and Thames estuaries flow into the North Sea. Over centuries this was a place that was home to farmland, castles, a dock yard, an air station, industrial installations, calm beaches and a population of islanders who have taken a pride in their home. To serve the needs of all of this a small railway network was built up and even an urban tram network. Included in this was a fixed link that was the first to ever link the island to the mainland. From 1860 the network grew as the importance of the island grew. Continental boat passengers, dockyard workmen and day trippers, they were all carried on the trains and trams that shuttled about to, from and across the flat terrain of this often overlooked island. Being an island can create its own unique set of challenges and the railways on the island were certainly challenged by misfortune and circumstances, but the little network kept going until economics got the better of it and from there on it becomes a story of contractions and closure. The Island can still boast a railway today but it is far removed from the story of its past. This work seeks to tell the story of the railways on the island, how they came to be built, how they were run and how times changed over the following decades.

Author: Edward Hasted
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 652

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Previous control number ISBN 0-85409-787-2.

Author: Sir Bernard Burke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gentry
Languages : en
Pages : 2114

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Author: Bernard Burke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gentry
Languages : en
Pages : 2164

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Author: Cecil Roth
Publisher: London : Jewish Monthly
ISBN:
Category : Antisemitism
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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