*Afterthoughts & Addenda* - There is a huge amount of interesting history in this locality, which this video will not even touch on (as the key objective here was just to visit the island on foot, and nothing much more). If you're interested in a followup video about the significant local maritime and military history of this place, and including such topics as why the island is called 'Rat Island', why the water beyond it is called 'Weevil Lake', why there is a modern residential development called 'Slaughterhouse Square', let me know...
Great content Mike. As a local kid some years ago, I camped on Rat island a few times. It wasn't until years later I learned about fort James and the cemetery on the island. Not sure we would have been as keen to stay on island cut off overnight if we did. There were some red brick walls still standing and a small tower 30ft? That we also climbed. Nowadays I'd rather visit the powder monkey where you jumped the rail. They brew a nice pint.
I know your channel consists of random bits as you've said previously. But I must say, I absolutely LOVE this video especially. Thank you for this! As sweet as the strawberries you've supplied us before.
When you upload it makes me so happy A smile on my face. You're such a nice chappie Your rambles and walks, your recipes too they are fun for us all, as you see by the views I must end this now, I have ran out of rhymes Thank you again for all the good times I am not great with words but I hope you enjoy the sentiment
Mr Atomic Feels Naughty But Is All Technically Legal Shrimp is brilliant, and I and probably others want to see more of him, I'll have to visit they that previously unknown to me museum at some point!
Growing up by the Wadden Sea left me like - "well...yeah, of course you can walk to an island, we used to do school trips to the islets strew across the North Frisian coast", but then I remembered that the Wadden Sea is a very local thing 😅 If you ever want to feel a thrill, walk 3 km to an islet and try to get back home before the tide comes in 😂
One of the best videos you've put out this year! I hope this will become a regular series. This kind of reminds me of Norfolk, VA, which is also very military and industrial. Would love to see more of the locality!
Gosport has some nice places to walk around, notably Gilkicker Point where there is an old fort, however it has recently been earmarked for demolition and will be turned into flats. Anyway the beach round there is nice. You can watch the Isle of Wight ferries come in and out of Portsmouth Harbour
I love discovering difficult to access but legal locations. As a 20 something year old man over 6' tall and an avid climber, I have no issue going over any fence that isn't barbed, and ventured to many such locations here in the US. There's just something satisfying about defeating barriers, perhaps that's why I enjoy (only legal) locksport as well.
Nice little video, mate. Oystercatcher are also sometimes called Cocklemar. Thought you might enjoy that fact. And they absolutely do try to draw you away from their nests. If you come across a beer with the name Cocklemar, it's ruddy lovely.
Piel Island off Barrow In Furness is an interesting tidal island too, you can walk there, it has a massive ruined castle, an Inn, a campsite, guest houses and even a passenger ferry with the high tide. Good for a weekend or a day trip.
This is one of my favorite videos from this channel, and that's hard to top because I couldn't even pick a top 5. I guess the foraging and cooking topics are top tier, but the mudlarking and general hiking are all so interesting! You have a way of narration that is simply perfect, and the topics (varied as they are) always instill a sense of intrigue, like the microbiome for example.
As someone who spent much of my youth in that bit of Hampshire (RN kid), I love your videos showing me places I knew 30-odd years ago. Please, keep up the great content.
Wow that brought back a few memories from my past! I was born and raised in Gospot which makes me a turk towner and used to venture onto rat island most Saturdays at the crack of dawn when the tide was right. My brother and I used to walk around from Grove road through the park and visit the ship wreck along the way for a bit of bait for fishing and then walk up to Weevil bridge (which was replaced by the millennium bridge) and sit under the MoD guard house until the tide was out far enough to sneak around. The house on the Island was already collapsed in the 1980's and I remember walking on the roof of it back then, the roof was made of slate by the way. There was also a pylon with a warning of 100000 volts or something like that which really swayed in the wind the higher you went up but we were kids with not a lot of sense back then but we knew there was'nt any electric cables. Off the spit on the second part of the island was always a good spot to find interesting stones and was also a keen fishing spot for my brother and I. As a kid in the area we would quite often find broken clay pipes and if you were really lucky you could also find the old soda bottles with the glass marbles in them, I'm sure we found munitions too but we didn't touch any of those.
I went to visit Portsmouth to visit a friend a few years back and I remember seeing a tiny little island just off Gosport... I think it's the same island. Fascinating to see what it was!
Love content like this - I like to think I'm good at finding niche places on my adventures, but this is in a different league! This and the old railway walk stood out to me as some of your best videos this year. No idea how you find these places haha
I lived in Gosport for most of my life and even now I'm only one town north. I used to go to this island with my father and we'd find all sorts of treasures on the rarely explored stretch that you explored here. Thanks for bringing me back to a place that holds a lot of joy in my memories ✨
I grew up near a tidal island (Sully Island) and it still fascinates me to this day. It has remains of a boat in the sand of its beach. We used to watch people having to be rescued or, stupidly, trying to run across the causeway as the tide started to flow over. The Bristol Channel flows over it very quickly.
I bet it's a museum to commemorate a big ass explosion during wartime, my money's on WW1 or Napoleonic, maybe a ships battery/powder stores went up? Happened in Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada in WW2, there's a museum containing shrapnel that was blasted kilometers away iirc
- 1:02 It's like when children ask if they can go to the bathroom and snooty teachers say "I don't know if you CAN, but you MAY"; in this case you could respond "Yes, I know I can, I'm specifically asking if I CAN go to the island. 😒" - This video reminds me of Tony Fisher's urbex videos.
The first town settled by Europeans in my state of New Hampshire is named Portsmouth. There also used to be an island town of Gosport across the water from our Portsmouth, although the town has since been disincorporated and merged into the town of Rye. It was very interesting for me to get a glimpse of the original Hampshire that inspired the creation of my home state. Thanks for the great content!
Funny how settlers name places and things after their original home country. No being original and coming up with their own place names lol My ancestors were illegal masterless men who jumped a navy ship, and to hide from the navy, they changed their last name to a place name in England. No idea what their real last name was, but I'm guessing they were from that town or close by.
That's interesting as just off the coast of Portsmouth in the uk is the Isle of Wight and the closest town on the isle of Wight is called Ryde. Is this just a coincidence that you have Rye nearby to Portsmouth? Also, I'm pretty sure there's a place in Texas called Isle of Wight. 🤔
I enjoyed this video too, I feel im taking a bit of a liberty but noting your interest in " old " Hampshire I thought my FB group and youtube channel ( Rob's Hampshire Pub Walks) may interest you.
Used to play on Rat Island in the early 70s. Clarence Yard and Priddy's Hard was still operational and we took the route from Hardway Priory Road as you did. I lived just outside the Priory Road Entrance to Priddy's Hard. Used to find loads of clay pipe bowls and the occasional thunderflash. The mud was lethal if you didn't know where to walk. A lot of the "demolition" waste was tipped there after the blitz.
Fascinating place. You wouldn’t get me under that pier. I was spooked out by walking under a pier in Blackpool when I was a nipper. I find them incredibly menacing.
FASCINATING ~~!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for taking all of us on this trip with you . New York City has a few similar tiny islands , but I think they are now off limits.
I adore how many times you repeat you don't want to be on the island, aren't trying to go, as if the military is actively spying on you from the trees or your camera 😄 So funny. I love your videos a lot, Mike. All the variety is really fun.
Brilliant video and very relevant to me as I live in an apartment overlooking Rat Island. I have often thought of doing exactly what you did but as an elderly chap it is clearly beyond me. At least I can now look out of my windows and have a better idea of what is there. Thanks for your investigation and thanks for posting. By the way. the Explosion Museum is super and covers weaponry from hundreds of years ago to almost the present time.
You know, I never really thought I would find a video like this that interesting. But hearing your talking about things while you were walking and actually seeing how cool some of that stuff was, I gotta say I was wrong and it was actually pretty interesting. Definitely gonna watch more of this kind of content now.
Oh my god!! What have they done 😳 i used to go out onto the island and fish there all the time. It was easily accessible from millennium bridge (where the tall fence with spiked railings were). I haven't been there for say 3 years and am shocked at how it's changed.. talk about all good things coming to an end!!! Nice video btw and good explore!!
This is literally at the end of my road, the Island used to be much easier to get to, at 1:50 those bars weren't there till very recently. I live in the new houses you likely saw around that little area and they had to build further flood defences to get permission to move people in, as part of that, those bars were also erected which now stops you from walking onto those shingles. Over the past four weeks or so there were a few explosive scares on the shingles you walked across which was likely a large reason as to why it's been blocked off, old bombs were found and the area got closed off for a while atleast twice. Couple years ago it was normal to see people walking to this Island, fishing there and all that without any notice from police or MOD.
As a young lad born in the area, we used to play here all summer long. Had some amazing memories between 1989 and 1999 all around the bay upto Portchester Castle and round to Langstone. A great place as a young otter boy to play and explore. The mud flats can be pretty dangerous too... We used to Jump off the jetty and swim across, then hide from the MPs and sneek back. The whole bay is teeming with great locations and history. We used to love hunting for cannonballs around the castle shoreline and even found a helmet from. Henry the 8th era... Its now on display in the Museum of the castle.
I really enjoyed this video and happened to watch it the day after coming back from Ireland where my brother and I explored an island called Ireland's Eye, lovely little island with lots of uncommon birds to the UK. It also makes me want to go and explore some tidal islands, maybe even making a full day of it and seeing what they are like with a high tide in between.
If you're continuing this series, Cramond Island (north of the border) is a good walk. Also, random question, how do you keep the camera so steady when you're walking?
Thanks - yeah, I'm not sure I will get to visit all 43 such islands, but it's a start It's a GoPro - it has built in software stabilisation that is really pretty good
@@AtomicShrimp Piel Island off Barrow In Furness is an interesting one, you can walk there, it has a massive ruined castle, an Inn, a campsite, guest houses and even a passenger ferry with the high tide. Good for a weekend or a day trip.
How do you capture discernable audio when recording with a gropro? Would to see a video showcasing your 'out and about' setup in the same vein as the studio tour!
This was a really cool video to stumble upon! I live just there by the Millennium bridge, and I can see the island from my living room window. Might have to try this myself 😅
That was interesting. I enjoyed it. Felt like I went on the adventure with you but in the comfort of my lounge room. I'm sure others feel the same way.
Urbex is always my favourite kind of content, or just any exploration really. This was an interesting video I wasn't expecting... I mean I subbed for your food challenges and scambaiting. So this is a lovely deviation, even though it's still very Atomic Shrimp. I love it 😊💜
Wow! I never thought I'd see my hometown on here. Crazy that I'd spend so many summers there. If you fight through the Bush on rat island there's a plethora of sea mines to find. Obviously rusted through, but an impressive find nonetheless. Hoped the seagulls by the ferry left you alone bud
Why be surprised about seeing your home town on this channel, or RU-vid? If he went to Edinburgh, and you were from Edinburgh, would you be surprised to see your home town on there?
Well thankyou for uploading this! You may not realise but this is excellent excellent footage for a recce aimed at bass fishing. Bass love to frequent esturies and love structure that may hold bait items such as crab, shrimp, or bait fish. At low tide, these bait items get swept off their hidey-holes and the bass exploit this by waiting at pinch points and areas of high current
ah those oystercatchers take me back, the office i worked in was chosen as a breeding ground for them so every year we'd have to be very careful in the car park not to run over the adults and adorable babies that would just hang out in the street and not even move when you were right next to them
Oh wow, i really loved that video, just sat watching with a smile on my face,I could watch videos like this for hours, I must say when you stumbled upon that old narrow gauge track all I could think about was your video about the old abandoned line you’ve visited before in a previous video. Loved those videos too. But seriously I love your content and have watched and have been subscribed for a long time now, can’t beat a video like this or any other thing you do, from your scam baiting video to your limited budget food challenges you always manage to put a smile on my face with a feeling of calm and care in your videos which you always proceed to do without any hesitation. Anyway shrimp loved anything and everything you’ve done. Keep up the amazing content you’ve always managed to deliver. 👏👍
There are several islands not too far from the edge of Niagara Falls that one is able to walk to quite easily through the park system, giving you some breathtaking views to say the least, and you don't necessarily have to cross the border into Canada for the all the good stuff. I grew up about 15-20 minutes away from Niagara Falls in a place called Buffalo, where we're the absolute best at making it to the finals in some sport and blowing it, hard. Well, that and chicken wings...🤣
That bird reminded me of a kind of bird from where I used to live. It was some plover species that nested on the ground. It piped so much whenever we walked at all near its nest. Basically a natural alarm system to protect its clutch. Very amusing birds, they would always have their nests in the worst possible places lol
Loved this, love people doing their right to wander and explore if not trespassing. I was waiting for someone to shout at you though, I bet you were to 🤣
Be curious if in the future he tries this again and someone has specifically set a trap to warn him never to jump the fence. Anyway always a bit of fun just to be curious about
We have a similar beach near Liverpool - Crosby Beach. Like this place it is filled with bricks and I think you will love why! The bricks are from bombed houses and the put them on the beach to protect the land. Yime has washed these bricks right down but they still protect the people - lovely idea!
My nan lived in gosport but during the 2nd world war her house was bombed and destroyed and her first husband killed, she than met my grandad and they moved to Portsmouth. Great little video. Thankyou. I hope for a video of hayling Island too.
From the wiki.. Burrow Island (also known as 'Rat Island') is a tidal island in Gosport, United Kingdom. The island overlooks Portsmouth harbour.[1] At low tide a spit connects it with Priddy's Hard.[1] It has been suggested that the name dates from the 17th century and is derived from being within the borough of Gosport.[2] Between 1678 and 1679, a fortification named Fort James was constructed on the island under the direction of Bernard de Gomme.[1] It took the form of a square tower 19 ft tall.[1] The fortification was apparently allowed to decay with George Byng commenting on its poor condition in a letter written in either 1707 or 1708.[3] It appears that a rebuilding to a new design was proposed on 1750 but this never took place.[1] What were by then the ruins of the fort were partially demolished 1827 and nothing now remains above ground level.[1]
With the track there, I'm more confused (though this might just be my lack of train knowledge showing) about why the tracks seem to be below the tide line, they're covered in seaweed and such. Would they just have been allowed to submerge at high tides when they were in use, because in my head at least that seems like it wouldn't be particularly healthy for them?
@@FrankFurther nods another commentor explained it for us. It was built on sediment so was higher years ago but tide and time eroding the sediment away caused it to be at the level we saw today.
Did a fair amount of work on Rat Island with the MoD/DIO and Historic England when I worked as the Lead Advisor for the Solent for Natural England. There's a lot of old coastal defences which have blown around the Solent so hence why there are tons of bricks washed up on the foreshore. But there is evidence there were a few structures on the island there as up to about 1943, you can see on the OS map both a waymarker point and some other buildings.
Ahh, can see the spinnaker tower in shot at the start, my neck of the woods, can't remember hearing about Burrow Island. Need to pay more attention 😅😅Although I haven't been over to Gosport for a good few years.
i live there,fished an camped on it for years,always felt spooky,was a buzz being there....then i found out why!!lots of skeletons found,epic!!ive walked through there at high tide as i missd the tide as it gets cut off.great times,great place for fishing,sssshhhhhh😁
That's an interesting remark - I just went back to look again at the footage from under the pier and I didn't see any of the things that I would call 'mermaid's purses', i.e. roughly rectangular shark and dogfish egg cases. Either I don't see very well, or some people have the same name for different things!
@@jonathanrichards593 appreciate the reply and apologies for the delay. In the north east of England, south east Northumberland at least, we call all those pockets mermaids purses. I know the differently shaped ones you’re talking about, like those more visible in the vid; we call them the same thing. All the best.
Catcher. Oystercatcher. Memorably, as a two-year-old my daughter was told that those conspicuous birds were called oystercatchers. "That's funny", she said, "you'd have thought that the oysters would see them coming".
I remember stopping off on Rat Island around 1986 with my friend from his parents' boat which was moored in Gosport, had a great time around the shoreline, if there were MoD signs we must have ignored them.
Cool vid, in a non-action sort of way. Good to see that focus on what is and what isn't the goal, and also that there are very different formats to your vids like weird-stuff-in-a-can series. I am using that very idea to help my partner build a vid persona- varied, yet still focused. There are a lot that do it so-so, and a few that do it well like yourself if I may suck-up just a bit. Odd, but that is so much a part of successful videoing and then KEEPing your viewers on board.
Thanks for this, great to see. I re-watched 'Britain’s Most Historic Towns' S03E03 (33rd minute to ~36 and 40 secs) after I watched this. It seems that the remains uncovered there were re-buried on the island? A couple of dozen skeletons at least.
