Like none on Earth, meet Britain's 'Island of the Dead' where no one is allowed to set foot

At first glance, Deadman's Island looks like a scene from a horror movie or a Stephen King novel.

This island, located off the coast of Kent not far from London, has become the ghost resort of prisoners who died on "prison ships". Their bones are now emerging from the mud, revealing the dark secrets of the past.

The island is located in the estuary of the River Swale, opposite Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey. Although it can be found on the map, access to the island is prohibited. The reason for this is the many birds that nest here during the breeding season, which makes the island inaccessible to visitors.

The only signs of human presence are wooden coffins and skeletons buried under six feet of mud for centuries. Now, due to coastal erosion, those remains are exposed. According to BBC reports, the island is owned by Natural England and leased to two private individuals.

The island as a place of special scientific interest

Deadman's Island is registered as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and recognized internationally under the Ramsar Convention. In 2017, the island gained public attention when the crew of the BBC's Inside Out program got a rare opportunity to explore this forgotten piece of land. The show's presenter, Natalie Graham, shared her experience with The Sun, saying: “What I saw there will stay indelibly with me forever. It's a really strange sight. I don't think there is anything like it anywhere in the world."

Director Sam Supple described his impressions: “It's like being on the set of a horror movie. It looks so unreal, as if the scene was created for a movie. There are open coffins and bones everywhere.”

The dark history of the island

The area around the island was ominously named "Coffin Bay" due to the sight of open coffins and human remains scattered along the shore. Local folklore, fueled by the island's ghostly atmosphere, tells of dogs with blood-red eyes that ate the heads of buried bodies, contributing to the island's fearsome reputation as "the place where the dead live".

However, the real story behind Dead Island is one of tragedy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, prisoners were kept on "prison ships", floating prisons near the islands. One of those ships bore the ominous name Retribution.

These prisoners, some as young as ten convicted of petty crimes such as pickpocketing, were destined to be deported to Australia, but those too ill to travel died on those ships anchored on the island Sheppey, dying in the dark rooms of those floating prisons.

The challenges of waste storage

Diseases spread rapidly on ships, leading to high mortality. The late maritime historian Professor Eric Grove said in a BBC documentary: “Many crimes carried the death penalty, but as a more humane way, it was decided that it would be good to transport prisoners. If they were deemed unfit to travel to Australia, they would be left on the ship."

The bodies of these unfortunate souls were buried in unmarked graves on the island to prevent the spread of disease among the local population. Now, at low tide, the island reveals its dark history, although no one knows the identity of those buried.

Experts are facing the challenge of preserving the remains on Deadman's Island due to relentless erosion blowing away the bones, Kent Live reports. Supple himself pointed out: "There are memorials to other prisoners who died on prison ships, like the one in Chatham, Kent, but these people have nothing."

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