History
The following extract is taken from the Topographical Dictionary of Great Britain and Ireland by John Gorton, 1833:
Graine, Isle of
A parish in the Hundred of Hoo, lathe of Aylesford, opposite to Sheppey at the mouth of the Thames; it is about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) long and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) broad and is formed by Yantlet Creek running from the Medway to the Thames. The Creek was filled up, and had a road across it for 40 years until 1823, when the Lord Mayor ordered it to be again reopened, so as to give about eight feet navigation for barges at spring tide; thus saving a distance of fourteen miles (21 km) into the Medway, and avoiding the danger of going round by the Nore.
The closure of the road caused considerable anger among the residents of the Island and it was later reopened. The need to reach London by a less circuitous route was later to be addressed by the Thames and Medway Canal, although this plan, too, was not a success.
In 1855, as part of military defences guarding the Thames, Grain Tower, a fort, was built. It remained in use until 1946, having been used during both World Wars. In earlier times the incidence of marsh fever (Malaria) was extremely high. 1918 saw Britain's last recorded outbreak of the disease.
Yantlet Creek was the downstream limit of the City of London's ownership of the bed of the River Thames. It is marked by a London Stone beside the mouth of the creek.
Read more about this topic: Isle Of Grain
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)