Haunting past of ‘world's most infected island' full of human skulls that is less than a mile away from UK coast
Just off the coast of the UK, the northern coast of Kent, to be precise, is a small bit of land known as the 'world's most infected island'.
It has another name, though if anything, it's even less cheerful, as it's known as Deadman's Island, and naturally, there's a fitting story behind such a grisly title.
The island gained the name only recently, thanks to a discovery of corpses in 2016, and further investigation pointed towards the bodies belonging to condemned men who died of diseases while on board prison ships that had been located nearby.
With the corpses being around two centuries old, their bodies remained interred beneath the ground for a long time.
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However, seawater changes the landscape, and the muddy earth above them was eventually swept away to reveal the coffins of the diseased dead.
Disease would have been rife on the prison hulks, with little concern for hygiene or the prisoners on board, meaning these men died of contagious illnesses on board a ship that was outfitted into a prison.
After living out the last of their days in cramped and unpleasant conditions on the prison ship, their corpses were taken to the island.
Over 200 bodies were found on Deadman's Island, taken from their prison hulk and buried in unmarked graves, which the sea subsequently revealed.
People are not allowed on Deadman's Island, which is owned by Natural England and is considered to be an important nesting site for birds, but a YouTuber named Darah Tah went there to spend the night and very quickly found bone fragments on the beach.
Tah said he'd snuck onto the island before, but this time was going to spend the night on Deadman's, then went about poking at old bottles, bits of ships and human remains.
While he said the remains and items he was finding were several centuries old, the remains discovered in 2016 were only a couple of centuries old, according to the BBC.
Over 200 men were buried in graves, unmarked and un-mourned until their remains were discovered a couple of centuries later.
The bones on Deadman's Island are only visible at certain times, as the tides dictate much about the island.
It was the movements of the tides which gradually stripped away the several feet of muddy ground which had hidden the bodies of the prisoners from view, and a change in sea levels renders some parts of Deadman's Island dangerous to traverse or underwater, depending on the time of day.
Given the amount of time since the bodies were buried, they will no longer pose a risk of disease to people who might come into contact with them, though it's hardly an argument for going over there and messing with things.
Joe Harker