Foulness SSSI Foulness SSSI Foulness SSSI is a 10,702 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest covering the shoreline between Southend-on-Sea and the Crouch estuary in Essex. It is a key site in "A Nature Conservation Review", and is part of the Essex Estuaries Special Area of Conservation. It covers two Ramsar wetland sites of international importance, 'Crouch and Roach Estuaries' and 'Foulness'. An area of 6.4 hectares is Shoeburyness Old Ranges, a Local Nature Reserve managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. Most of the site is owned and managed by the Ministry of Defence. Natural England describes it as "extensive intertidal
Foulness Island New Wick Marsh, and again between 1424 and 1486, when Arundel Marsh was enclosed. Ditches ran between the walls of the marshes, with sluices at the ends where the ditches met the sea. At high water, the island would effectively be divided into a number of smaller islands. A Commission of Sewers was appointed in 1695, whose jurisdiction included Foulness, but the inhabitants were not happy, and engaged the lawyer Sir John Brodrick to put their case. They argued that an exceptional high tide had flooded the island in 1690, but that they had repaired and improved the walls themselves,