The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred 42 miles (68 km) from central London.

The rest of Sheppey is low-lying and the southern part of the island is marshy land criss-crossed by inlets and drains, largely used for grazing.

In concert with the Wantsum Channel that once separated the Isle of Thanet from mainland Britain to the east (before it silted over in the late Middle Ages), and Yantlet Creek at the Isle of Grain to the west, it was occasionally used in ancient times by ships navigating to and from ports such as Chatham and London to reduce exposure to bad weather in the Thames Estuary or North Sea.

Pedestrian, animal and bicycle traffic, as well as the railway, are still obliged to use the lifting bridge, which still provides the most direct link between the island and the Iwade/Lower Halstow area.

[3] On 5 September 2013, fog caused a 130 vehicle pile-up on the Sheppey Crossing bridge and its northern approach in which eight people were seriously hurt and another 30 hospitalised.

The complex of causewayed enclosures at Kingsborough Manor attests to the importance of the island's high ground during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.

[5] Later prehistoric, Roman and medieval occupation has been found by archaeologists in advance of development at Neat's Court and St Clements CofE Primary School in Leysdown.

[7] In 855, Sheppey as part of the kingdom of Wessex, became the winter camp of an occupying Viking force,[10] presumably the raiders from prior attacks.

[7] In 1016, Cnut the Great of Denmark and his forces are reported to have retreated to the Island of Sheppey rather than face King Edmund Ironside in battle during the winter.

In 1188 Adam de Shurland possessed a mill with more than 1,000 acres (405 ha) of mixed land, mostly marsh with a small meadow: he also let a number of cottages thereabouts.

Sir Robert de Shurland (d. 1324), a member of the family, served in the Anglo-Scottish wars, including the siege of Caerlaverock (1300), where he was knighted; and shortly afterwards obtained a charter of free warren for his manor of Ufton, in the parish of Tunstall.

Mounted on horseback, he swam out to the Nore (north of Sheppey), where the king's ship was anchored, and gained forgiveness.

To defy the prophecy, Sir Robert killed his horse; but later encountering its bones, he kicked them in scorn, only for a shard to pierce his foot, causing an infection from which he died.

The tale takes elements from Italian, Slavic and Icelandic folklore (including the story of Oleg the Wise, and that of Örvar-Oddr).

[13] Sir Robert died in 1324 leaving as his heir a daughter Margaret, who married William, son of Alexander Cheyne of Patrixbourne.

The Swale channel was the point of departure selected by James II, when departing in some haste "from the Protestant deliverance of the nation" by William of Orange in December 1688.

They thought such a noble on such a humble vessel was the locally hated Jesuit Edward Petre and so took his money, watch and coronation ring.

Sheerness was the focus of an attack by the Dutch Navy in June 1667, when 72 hostile ships compelled the little "sandspit fort" there to surrender and landed a force which for a short while occupied the town.

Samuel Pepys at Gravesend remarked in his diary "we do plainly at this time hear the guns play" and in fear departed to Brampton in Huntingdonshire.

Decorated with ornate ironwork, it features operating rails extending the length of the building, for the movement of stores, much like a modern crane.

About 200 shipwrecks are recorded around the coast of Sheppey, the most famous being the SS Richard Montgomery, a liberty ship loaded with bombs and explosives that grounded on sandbanks during the Second World War.

[24] The last known colony in England of the British endemic subspecies of the Essex Emerald moth, at Windmill creek, died out as late as 1991.

[21] In 2008 palaeontologists published details of the fossil skull, found on the island, of a large flying bird from the Eocene epoch called Dasornis in the deposits of the London Clay.

The Short brothers, Horace, Eustace and Oswald, built aircraft at Battersea to be tested at the site; later Moore-Brabazon, Professor Huntington, Charles S. Rolls and Cecil Grace all visited and used the flying club's services.

The Eastchurch airfield was also the site, in July 1911, of the competition for the Gordon Bennett Cup for powered air racing, attended by flyers from all over the world, and won that year by the American pilot C. T. Weymann.

A stained glass window in the south side of All Saints' Church, Eastchurch (built in 1432), was dedicated to Rolls and Grace, who were killed in July and December 1910 respectively.

SkySheppey brought together a number of associations and joined with many visitors to recognise the importance of British aviation history that started at Eastchurch.

In the 2011 census, the island had a resident population of 40,300, many of whom commute to the mainland via the Sheerness-Sittingbourne rail link and the new Sheppey Crossing Bridge.

The island has a non-league football club, Sheppey United F.C., based at Holm Park and who play in the Isthmian League South East Division.

The most recent was a 2008 concept supported by the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who felt that the artificial island off Sheppey would be a viable alternative to creating a new third runway at Heathrow.