A force of Nature
THE Isle of Sheppey is not the first place you might think of as a beautiful landscape. At the confluence of the Thames and Medway estuaries, it generally conforms to the term coined by the filmmaker Derek Jarman for his garden at Dungeness, in another part of Kent: Modern Nature. In his case, that meant the Nature that survives in the shadow of a nuclear power station. There is no power station on Sheppey, but it is hardly manicured—low-lying and marshy, it was known by the soldiers posted here in the First World War as ‘mud island’. Indeed, remains of Sheppey’s 20th-century defences can still be seen in the remnants of concrete structures around the shore.
Prepare, then, to be surprised. In the lee of tall-arcing Sheppey Crossing bridge lies Elmley, site of the only farmer-run National Nature Reserve (NNR) in
