The Strood that isolates 7,000 people

You can kayak across it if you're feeling brave too

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The latest in our ongoing tour of other places that share Medway placenames takes us.. not that far away really. We’re off to Essex, and not to the place you might be expecting.

A few months ago I was on holiday in Essex for a few days. Yes yes, I know, I live the high life.

We’d stayed in a lovely Airbnb in the middle of nowhere, and as the weather was nice, decided to head to the nearest beach.

That beach turned out to be at West Mersea, located on Mersea Island, just off the Essex coast.

Imagine my surprise on the way there when road signs started telling us that we were approaching ‘The Strood’.

Now, despite the very long list I have in a spreadsheet for potential future editions, I wasn’t even aware that there was this other Strood at the time, let alone ‘The Strood’.