Published October 2025 — adapted from BBC News reporting, with additional historical context
Out in the Medway Estuary, not far from Sheerness, lies a small and unsettlingly named place — Deadman’s Island. Today it’s a haven for wading birds and saltmarsh life, closed to the public and managed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest by Natural England. But beneath its mud and reeds lie hundreds of forgotten burials, now slowly being revealed by the tides.
Over the past few years, bones, skulls and fragments of coffins have begun to rise to the surface as erosion and sea-level change reshape the shoreline. The BBC recently revisited the island to report on this haunting phenomenon — a visible reminder of how history, nature and human mortality intersect along our coasts.
A burial ground born of hardship
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Medway was home to several prison hulks — decommissioned warships moored near Chatham and Sheerness and used to hold convicts in cramped, disease-ridden conditions. Many of those men never left the hulks alive. When they died, their bodies were ferried to nearby mud islands for burial, well away from populated areas. Deadman’s Island became one such burial ground.
The prisoners were laid to rest in simple wooden coffins beneath the soft tidal clay. For generations, they lay undisturbed — until wind, water and time began to expose what the mud had preserved. Visitors who have been granted access describe the scene as both eerie and poignant: bleached bones emerging from the earth where the tide has eaten away the shore.
Nature reclaims and reveals
Deadman’s Island is now strictly off-limits to protect both wildlife and the dignity of the remains. Each year, however, the natural process of coastal erosion brings more evidence of those long-ago burials to light. It’s a striking example of how the forces of nature can uncover the past, just as they quietly transform churchyards, cemeteries and memorial sites on land.
For those of us who help to care for historic burial grounds, there is something familiar and sobering in this story. Whether in a Victorian cemetery in Folkestone or a windswept estuary off Sheerness, time and the elements continue their patient work — uncovering, reclaiming, and reminding us of lives once lived.
A shared responsibility of remembrance
Deadman’s Island cannot be visited, but it deserves to be remembered. Its shifting mudflats speak of Britain’s maritime history, of hardship and loss, and of how fragile even our resting places can be. As our own local cemetery landscapes face the challenges of age, weather, and environmental change, they too remind us of the importance of care, respect, and preservation — values at the heart of what we do at Friends of Folkestone Cemetery.
