Do you ever have those days when you seriously consider throwing in the towel on London life and its constant conveyor belt of busy tubes and even busier diaries? You know, those days when you truly contemplate hotfooting it straight to a private island to live out the rest of your days before remembering that you actually can’t last longer than two weeks without a bit of concrete, chaos, and confusing station exits? Because, well…same. But also because we may have just found the perfect private island for you.
This particular private island is remote enough that it’ll be much trickier for you to be reached by all those people that you forgot to reply to and reminded of all those things you didn’t manage to check off your to-do list. But it’s also close enough to the capital that you can still get your frequent fix of the city’s hustle and bustle when you fancy it. Yes, this place really does exist. It’s called I mean Island. It’s less than two hours from London. And it’s just been popped on the property market. There’s just one minor caveat. It will cost you a rather shudder-inducing £25 million to snap it up.
Located in the Blackwater Estuary near Maldon in Essex; Osea Island is a 380-acre islandcurrently owned by music producer, Nigel Frieda. The island boasts 38 residential properties (ranging from an Edwardian manor houses to luxury apartments), an established hospitality and entertainment business (complete with state-of-the-art recording studio facilities), a whole load of celebrity connectionsand plenty of fascinating history.
The history of Osea Island
Osea Island is drenched in history, boasting evidence dating back to the Viking, Norman and the Victorian eras. During WW1, torpedo-carrying speedboats supposedly operated from a secret naval base on the island, and during WWII it was occupied by the British Army. The island was later owned by Cambridge University and at some point along the way was declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Osea Island has played host to many famous faces over the years. Stormzy worked on his most recent album there, Olly Murs got married there, and Rihanna is said to have previously rented the island, too.
At low-tide, the island can be reached by vehicle via a Roman Causeway. At high-tide, however, the island is completely cut-off and can only be reached by boat or – of course – helicopter.
You can browse the full listing on Knight Frank here.
