Ray Island

Ray Island is a small island in the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, just west of Mersea Island, where a sandy hill of rough grassland rises out of the saltmarsh between the Strood Channel and the Ray Channel. The National Trust acquired it in 1970; it was until recently managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust, and the National Trust now runs it primarily for the benefit of wildlife. The saltmarsh is a rare habitat where lax-flowered sea lavender, golden samphire and sea rush add colour through the summer, and the island's quiet makes it a breeding ground for nightingale, redshank, oystercatcher and shelduck. Sabine Baring-Gould, who became rector of East Mersea in 1871, set his novel Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes here. This is a place to know about rather than to visit: the Trust lists it as closed, there is no visitor access on foot, no public footpath crosses it, and part of it, Bonner's Saltings, is privately owned. Anyone approaching from the water is asked to be sensitive to the wildlife, and camping is not permitted.