Northey Island

114ha      OS Landranger 168      Grid Ref TL872 058

South House Chase, off Mundon Road near Maldon.      Click here for location map

This National Trust reserve is one of two large islands in the upper reaches of the Blackwater Estuary near Maldon.

It can be reached via a causeway at low tide but access is by permit only. People wishing to visit the site should contact the warden in advance by calling 01621 853142. 

The sea wall footpath running south east from Promenade Park, Maldon offers good views across the river to Northey Island.

In the tenth century Vikings, Danes and Norsemen came to invade East Anglia and in 991 AD the battle of Northey Island took place. A raiding party of Danes, having sacked Ipswich in the North sailed up the Blackwater towards Maldon. But when they moored on Northey Island to prepare for the final assault they found themselves faced by a well armed local English army commanded by Earl Byrhtnoth. Byrhtnoth's defeat and death became the subject of an epic Anglo-Saxon poem. The battlefield is now registered as the earliest recorded battlefield in Britain.