Sometimes the names of certain places do not reflect the place, Deadman’s Island, or the island of the dead, has truly dead instead.
It is located at the mouth of the Swale opposite the town of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey off the north coast of Kent. The remains are believed to be those of men and boys who died of contagious diseases in floating prisons, known as gaols, moored off the Isle of Sheppey more than 200 years ago. They were almost certainly prisoners to be transported to Australia, when Australia was kind of a big British prison.
In theory it would make a glamorous and macabre tourist destination, for a day trip, but visitors are off-limits because it is a bird nesting and breeding site designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Rising sea levels, coastal erosion and lower tides have opened up numerous decaying wooden coffins, skulls and bone fragments can be seen protruding from the 2m of mud that once covered the area.
