It is dominated by a line of chalk, clay and sand hills,[2] surrounded by an extensive area of marshland composed of alluvial silt.

Bronze Age implements and Jutish cemeteries have been found on the peninsula, and Roman pottery at Cooling.

The reserve is also part of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Northward Hill SSSI[6] site which includes 270 hectares of grazing marsh, woodland and farmland.

The line of this now-silted canal can be considered a convenient boundary marking the landward edge of the peninsula.

As these rock falls could cause derailment, the tunnel was closed to trains during 2004 and was relined with reinforced concrete.

At the northern edge of the village the road becomes 'Pond Hill' and leads down the cliff to an unmetalled track on the marshes.

The SER saw it as part of the development of continental traffic, and the ferry terminal at what was named Port Victoria was built as terminus of the line.

Sharnal Street was the larger of the two original stations and was provided with goods sidings, where the local farmers were able to load their produce to be transported directly to the London markets.

Little came of the scheme, and today all signs of that branch have disappeared, save for the water tower which supplied locomotives at the terminus – it is now a listed building.

[12] The strategic location of the Hoo peninsula gave rise to the development of a range of industrial and commercial facilities.

This includes five power stations (Grain, Grain CCGT, Kingsnorth, Medway and Damhead Creek); four oil refineries (Medway Oil & Storage Company, Berry Wiggins, BP Kent and Burmah-Total); three oil storage tank farms (Admiralty, MOSCO and BP Kent); two gas plants (SEGAS and Grain LNG); and a submarine power cable from the Netherlands (BritNed).

[15] This reflected the Royal Navy policy of building oil-fired ships which were faster, produced less visible smoke and could be refuelled at sea.

[16][15] The site included four groups of oil tanks of various sizes within earth embankments and two short jetties in the Medway.

[15] In 1924 Berry Wiggins and Company built a plant to produce bitumen at Sharnal Street on the Isle of Grain.

[17] In 1930 Berry Wiggins started the construction of an oil refinery and tank farm at Kingsnorth (TQ817723) on the site of a First World War airship base.

[22] In 1952 Berry Wiggins built a new two-stage distillation unit at their refinery, and facilities to produce asphalt for road making and other oil-derived products.

[19] Oakham Ness jetty is south of Bee Ness jetty; it was built in 1964 as part of the construction of Kingsnorth power station and was used jointly by the power station and the Berry Wiggins refinery for the import of oil.

[23] It is 2 km long and runs across Oakham Marsh to the deep water of Kethole Reach of the River Medway (TQ840719).

For the planners, these disadvantages were outweighed by the proximity to London, the availability of cooling water from the River Medway, and deep-water berthing for oil tankers and colliers.

Damhead Creek (TQ809728) is a 792 MWe gas-fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power station, commissioned in 2001.

[30] Grain CCGT power station is a 1,275 MW plant consisting of three natural gas-fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine units, it was commissioned in May 2010, and cost £580 million.

The power station is able to transfer up to 340 MW of heat energy recovered from the steam condensation to run the vaporisers in the nearby Liquefied natural gas terminal.

[31] BritNed is a high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) submarine power cable between the Isle of Grain in Kent, the United Kingdom; and Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

This was established in 1900 by Curtis and Harvey Limited on a 128 ha site near Lower Hope Point[33] to manufacture nitroglycerine, cordite, dynamite and guncotton.

[34] The foundations of the building can be seen in the landscape[35][36] A cement works was established at Cliffe in about 1860 using locally mined chalk.

In 1960 BP in partnership with California Chemicals built a petrochemical plant to manufacture synthetic fibres from oil by-products.