Scolt Head Island

Scolt Head Island is an offshore barrier island between Brancaster and Wells-next-the-Sea in north Norfolk. It is in the parish of Burnham Norton and is accessed by a ferry running all year called Welcome from the village of Overy Staithe. The shingle and sand island appears to have originated from a former spit extending from the coast, and longshore drift means that it is slowly moving to the west and inshore.

The island comprises sand dunes, salt marsh, intertidal sand and mud flats, and shingle. It supports internationally important numbers of breeding Sandwich and little terns, and nationally significant populations of common and Arctic terns, as well as wintering waders and wildfowl. It has a number of uncommon plants adapted to its harsh environments. It was bought by the National Trust in 1923, and became a national nature reserve. It was subsumed into the North Norfolk Coast SSSI in 1986. The larger area is now additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar listings, and is part of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The first resident first "watcher" (warden) on Scolt Head was pioneering ornithologist and photographer Emma Turner.

This isolated island has been largely undisturbed by human activity apart from service as an artillery range in World War II, and it is of international importance because of the extensive research into its geomorphology over nearly a century.

Scolt Head Island is a roughly 6.5 km (4 mi) long shingle and sand island on the Norfolk coast opposite Burnham Norton. Despite its name, it is possible to walk across the mudflats and Norton Creek to the island at low tide. However this route is potentially dangerous due to shifting and deep mud and rapid tidal changes, and is not recommended by the landowner. Its main beach and ridge of sand dunes run approximately east to west, and it has a series of curved shingle "hooks" running south and east on its landward side. The 737 ha (1820 acres) island is composed almost entirely of flint pebbles, mostly rounded by wave action, and sand; other minerals make up less than one per cent of the material. It is gradually extending westwards due to wave action and longshore drift. The curved shingle ridges were formed when each in turn was formerly the western end of the island, and salt marshes have developed between each ridge. Some of the shorter side ridges meet the main ridge at a steep angle due to the southward movement of the latter.

Natural England's designation document states that the shingle spits here and at Blakeney Point are of special importance for the study of geophysical processes, and are the best studied and documented in the world. The salt marsh and shingle structures together are of the highest national importance for investigating the recent geological history of this coast. The salt marshes here develop rapidly due to the inflow of silt and increasing plant growth, increasing in height by about 1 cm (0.4 in) annually, and developing a well-defined creek system as they age.

The island is served by a ferry from Burnham Overy Staithe which runs from April to September, and there is a 1 km (1,100 yd) nature trail with information boards.

Norfolk has a long history of human occupation dating back to the Palaeolithic, and including significant archaeology. Both modern and Neanderthal people were present in the area between 100,000 and 10,000 years ago, before the last glaciation, and humans returned as the ice retreated northwards. The archaeological record is poor until about 20,000 years ago, partly because of the then prevailing very cold conditions, but also because the coastline was much further north than at present. As the ice retreated during the Mesolithic (10,000–5,000 BCE), the sea level rose, filling what is now the North Sea. This brought the Norfolk coastline much closer to its present line, so that many ancient sites are now under the sea in an area now known as Doggerland. Early Mesolithic flint tools with characteristic long blades up to 15 cm (5.9 in) long found on the present-day coast at nearby Titchwell Marsh date from a time when it was 60–70 km (37–43 mi) from the sea. Other flint tools have been found dating from the Upper Paleolithic (50,000–10,000 BCE) to the Neolithic (5,000–2,500 BCE). Deposits of peat between layers of marine or salt marsh sediments date from 1980–1780 BC, indicating that the sea had retreated, leaving this area as dry land during that era. Signs of human use of the island range from early medieval Grimston ware pottery to post-World War II building foundations, and wooden structures in the marshes include posts set for mussel farming, and a wooden structure that was probably a fish trap

It was originally thought that the island, believed to be 2–3 thousand years old, developed from an offshore shingle ridge, and had thus always been an island, but current thinking is that the island was originally a spit extending west from Holkham dunes. Support for this theory comes from boreholes and from radiocarbon dating of a shell to 837AD, that appeared to indicate the existence of saltmarshes behind the shingle barrier at that time. A 1585 map also appears to show a spit at this location, and a 1630 inventory of the lands of Robert of Brancaster, the local Lord of the Manor, did not list the island as a separate entity.