is a town on the
Isle Of Sheppey in
Kent ,
England . It is the largest town on the island with a population of about 20,000.
Sheerness was the focus of an attack by the
Dutch navy in June
1667 , when 72 hostile ships during the
Raid On The Medway compelled the little "sandspit fort", to surrender and landed a force which for a short while occupied the town. Impressed by the civil behavior of the Dutch marines - they paid for their dinner - the town reinvited the
Dutch Marine Corps for the third centennial of the raid. 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 .
Sheerness was also the site of a Royal Dockyard which, although not as large as those at
Chatham and
Deptford was still of some importance in
Tudor and
Stuart England. During the Victorian age a warship was built which still exists - HMS Gannet (an "Osprey" class Sloop) which was launched on 31 August 1878. She was capable of running under sail or steam and served the Royal Navy throughout the world, and has now been restored to her 1878 glory and is preserved in dry dock at the former Royal Dockyard at Chatham (having arrived at Chatham in 1987).
Also see
Andreas Grassl .
In 1860 the town was linked to mainland by a branch railway line from
Sittingbourne ; at the same time the Kingsferry bridge gave better communications with the island, succeeding the ferries which had at one time been the only connection.This was built by the London Chatham and Dover Railway Company,involving an opening span bridge to allow large ships to pass through.The rail bridge was also surfaced as a road bridge and was originally a toll bridge.In 1959 a new Kingsferry Bridge involving a tall concrete liftable span and towers was opened with separate lanes for road and rail. The line opened on
19 July 1860 . A branch to a pier a
Queenborough served a steamer service to
Flushing in Holland for many years. The
Sheppey Light Railway , opened in 1901, also provided services to Leysdown on the opposite end of the island from the town until its closure in 1948.
The dockyard — now Sheerness Docks — is a significant feature of the Isle of Sheppey's economy, which includes the extensive export-import of cars, and a steel works, with extensive railway fixtures.
Population of Sheerness and
Minster :
- 1801 5,600
- 1861 16,000
- 1921 22,200
- 1961 21,600 (the dockyard closure accounts for the fall in population)
