Mersea Island - History

History

There is evidence of pre-Roman settlement on Mersea in the form of "red hills" which are evidence of Celtic salt workings. A large Romano-British round barrow near the Strood contained the remains of a cremated adult in a glass urn, within a lead casket, now in the Castle Museum, Colchester. A large mosaic floor was found near West Mersea church.

The Anglo-Saxons built the church at West Mersea (St Peter & St Paul) which may have been founded as early as the 7th century. It was damaged by Norse raiders in 894 and rebuilt afterwards. A moat at East Mersea church (St Edmund, King & Martyr) is thought to be the remains of a Danish encampment. The Strood causeway was also built by the Saxons; oak piles discovered in 1978 have been dated by dendrochronology to between 684 and 702. By 950, there was a Benedictine Priory at West Mersea and land at West Mersea was granted to the Abbey of St Ouen in France by Edward the Confessor in 1046.

The priory was finally dissolved in 1542. In the English Civil War, the Parliamentary Army built a blockhouse at East Mersea in 1648, with the aim of blockading the River Colne and the besieged town of Colchester. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Dutch and French settlers arrived on the island. Some locals supplemented their income from the oyster trade by smuggling. A police officer for the island was appointed in 1844, and in 1871 a school was opened. The Reverend Sabine Baring Gould (author of "Onward Christian Soldiers" and of "Mehalah", a novel set in Mersea) was Rector of East Mersea from 1870-1881. Mains water and sewerage were available by 1925. In World War II, 2000 troops were stationed on the island to guard against invasion; the island was the Headquarters of the Royal Army Corps Motor Boat Company. Two batteries of 4.7 inch guns were installed; one at East Mersea has been demolished and one at West Mersea, now a cafe. Post war, the island suffered from severe winter weather in 1947 which destroyed much of the oyster fishery, and from the flooding of 1953. Since then the population has increased considerably.