THE beautiful scenery of Mersea has been captured in our latest aerial snaps.

Mersea Island is the most easterly inhabited island in the UK with a population of just under 7,000 at last count.

And those islanders are fiercely proud of their home and will fight tooth and nail to preserve its unique community.

There were tongue in cheek proposals at one time to give Mersea islanders their own passports.

And fast forward to more recent times and residents are united in opposing more housing development saying the infrastructure and facilities cannot cope with an extra influx of people.

Among those whose generations go back for centuries are the Haward family who for eight generations have been cultivating Mersea oysters in the River Blackwater, purifying them with that same sea water, giving them their unique and remarkable flavour.

Now the family firm, which dates back to 1732, supplies some of the finest oysters in the world which can still be bought on the Mersea seafront or at its stand at Borough Market in London.

The island, which covers approximately seven square miles, sits on both the Colne and Blackwater estuaries.

Its associations with oysters go back centuries as they were enjoyed as a delicacies by the Romans.

There is evidence of a pre-Roman settlement on the island and frequent - if unverified - reports of sightings of a Roman centurion crossing the Strood Channel at night.