Lower Horse facts for kids

Lower Horse is a small, uninhabited island off the coast of England. It covers about 31.1 acres (which is like 23 football fields!). You can find it in the Thames Estuary, which is where the River Thames meets the sea. It's located between Canvey Island and Stanford-le-Hope.

Where is Lower Horse?

Lower Horse is part of the Thurrock area, which is a type of local government region in England. The border between Thurrock and the county of Essex runs right between Lower Horse and Canvey Island. An old map from 1919, called an Ordnance Survey map, shows the island's size and some special areas called "saltings." Saltings are places where people used to collect sea salt by letting seawater dry out in the sun.

What is Lower Horse like?

Lower Horse is mostly made up of permanent marshland. Marshland is a type of wetland with soft, wet ground. The island has six small creeks inside it that drain water towards the north.

Lower Horse is one of several islands that broke away from the English coastline a long, long time ago, during the Middle Ages. Five of these islands later joined together to form what we now know as Canvey Island.