Through the ages

Isle of Sheppey through the ages:

AD161: The first authentic record of the island found in a work compiled by the celebrated Grecian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus.

664-675: Minster Abbey was completed.

798: First Danish invasion. They came back in 832.

855: Sheppey was ruled by the Danes.

893: Prince Hoestan of Denmark built forts at Shurland and Queenborough.

1052: Earl Godwin attacked Sheppey destroying Minster Abbey.

1066: William the Conqueror installed Barons in Sheppey.

1071: King Canute stayed at Shurland.

1130: Minster Abbey rebuilt and a Parish Church added.

1248: Leysdown Church built.

1272: Harty Church built.

1363: Queenborough Church built.

1366: Queenborough Castle built by King Edward III.

1377-99: King Richard II ordered coastal defences to be built on the Island.

1406: King Henry IV ordered better roads and levied tolls on the local ferry.

1579: First chemical works started at Queenborough.

1582: Queen Elizabeth fortifies Shurland and becomes the Lady of the Manor.
1667: The Dutch invade Sheppey.
1669: Royal Dockyard built and fortified.
1732: William Hogarth and friends stay in Queenborough.
1803: Napoleonic scare, two moats dug for defence.
1820: Admiralty House built for William Duke of Clarence (The Sailor King)
1825: Sir Edward Banks planned and laid out the Crescent, Bank Terraces and built the Royal Hotel. Then in 1831 carried out further improvements to the Dockyard.
1832: Queenborough disenfranchised marking the end of its status as a "rotten borough". A Jewish Synagogue built in Blue Town.
1834: Great cholera epidemic in Sheppey. Parish Unions established.
1836: Holy Trinity Church built. 1837 Queen Victoria ordered all the Churches to be restored.
1860: First bridge and railway built.
1902-04: Sheppey Light Railway to Leysdown opened and electric trams in Sheerness.
1909: The first powered sustained and controlled flights by a British pilot in Britain are made at Shellbeach, south of Leysdown. The world's first factory for the series production of aircraft is established at Shellbeach.
1911: First Royal Naval Air Station opens at Eastchurch
1912: First aircraft take-off from a ship in Britain is made by Royal Navy at Sheerness. Also RNAS Eastchurch pilot and aircraft make the first ever take-off from a ship whilst under way.
1914: First World War breaks out - passports were required to get on to the island.
1920: Great development in camping facilities at Leysdown.
1931: Ferry tolls abolished after 525 years.
1939: Second World War starts. The Isle of Sheppey becomes a closed area and once again passports are required to get on and off.
1940: Eastchurch aerodrome bombed, great number of new recruits killed. Defence forts floated out in the Estuary and anti-submarine boom placed from Shoeburyness to Minster.
1948: Sheppey Light Railway closed.
1953: Flooding did great damage to Sheppey, seawall has to be rebuilt at Cheyne Rock and heightened along its two mile length.
1960: A new bridge for Sheppey opened by Duchess of Kent.
1962: The Dockyard closed after 290 years of service to the Royal Navy.
1978: Island cut off from mainland by snow and floods. And again in 1979 with floods.
1983: An open prison with its own pig farm is created on the site of the former Eastchurch Aerodrome, with two more prisons built at a later date.
1987: In February the island was cut off from the mainland by snow. The military used helicopters to deliver produce to the island.
1987: Hurricane force winds devastated the Island, the historic Holm Oak Tree known as the Crusaders Tree crashes down.
2004: Work commenced on the second Swale Crossing.
2006: Sheppey Crossing opened