The term ‘Off Islands’ usually refers to the four smaller inhabited islands of Tresco, Bryher, St Martins and St Agnes, although there are around 145 islands and islets in the Scilly archipelago. Travelling between the inhabited islands isn’t difficult, although you need to watch the timetables and the tides to find out both when the boats are going and which quay they are going from. Many a visitor, standing hopefully on a high-water quay, has watched in mystification as a passenger boat collected a queue of travellers from the low water quay – just too far away to run to in time – and then departed.
Bryher
The Moorings is on the West facing side of Bryher, the most smallest of the inhabited islands (at least, if you consider Gugh to be part of St Agnes). Bryher comes from the Cornish ‘Bre-yer’, meaning island of hills (note the similarity to the Scottish Gaelic ‘Brae’ and the Welsh ‘Bryn’). It is both green and rugged, both sheltered and wild, with dramatic rocky inlets and beautiful sandy beaches. There are wonderful walks on moorland and rock – although at times you are near the edge of steep rocky cliffs, so please take care of taking the edge paths, they are vertiginous in places, and not safe for unattended small children or pets, nor anyone who feels unsure on steep ground.
Bryher is the furthest west of the inhabited islands (by a whisker!) and faces the Atlantic – there is nothing between its Western shores and Newfoundland (for its twin directly across the ocean, see below!) Please don’t try to bring a boat in on the West side of the island unless you are experienced in pilotage, can read a chart and know your way – the charts are not 100% accurate round here and the many wreck sites are testimony to the unforgiving rocks.
The Northern End of Bryher consists of Shipman Head Down (where the remains of the walls of an Iron Age fort are clearly visible), the wonderfully named Badplace Hill and then – on the far side of The Gulf (an unforgiving rocky channel that splits the island) is Shipman Head. The Gulf is too dangerous to cross – sharp, slippery and washed by waves – but in any case, Shipman Head is closed during bird breeding season (mid April to mid-August) so please don’t take the risk.
Shipman Head Down and Badplace Hill have beautiful views and you may spot rare plants growing there, including the dwarf pansy and the orange bird’s foot. Bryher’s other hills, from North to South, are Watch Hill (with the old Daymark), Timmy’s Hill, South Hill, Samson Hill and Heathy Hill. Most are dotted with old entrance graves and carns.
The Pool of Bryher is a natural lagoon separated from the sea. It’s the only true brackish lagoon (salty, but less salty than the sea) on Scilly, and is separated from the sea by a narrow storm beach and low dunes. Bryher is visited by various species of breeding sea birds including the European storm petrel and the greater black-backed gull. Bryher was the setting of the film, “When the Whales Came”, based on Michael Morpurgo’s novel. Samson Hill, on the southern end of the island, was the site of the Birdman’s cottage.
Tresco
Tresco, closest to Bryher, is the second largest of the Scilly islands. Tresco has an ancient abbey (not open to the public), the remains of a medieval monastery, a church and the beautiful Tresco Abbey Gardens, home to over 20,000 plant species and several dozen red squirrels. There are two ruined castles, miles of cycle paths (cycles can be hired on the island) and beautiful beaches, woodland and views. Oystercatchers, curlews and kittiwakes are plentiful on Tresco – twitchers often travel to the island to see other rarer visitors including, in 2016, a snowy owl, and there are several bird hides. Over 440 bird species have been recorded on Scilly. The Northern end of the island is rock and moorland, with a number of caves at the foot, and the remains of two Civil War castles, but the southern end is low and dunes and grassland, with beautiful white beaches.
Tresco has a welcoming pub, the New Inn, which offers food and accommodation, bike hire, a spa and a variety of cottages available to rent or as Timeshares. There is truly excellent shrimping at the turn of the low tide around Plumb island, which is connected to Tresco when the tide is out.The original name for the island was the Cornish: Ryn Tewyn, meaning ‘promontory of sand-dunes’. In 1193, when the island was granted to the Abbot of Tavistock by Pope Celestine III, it became St. Nicholas’s island, and by 1305 it became called Trescau (farm of elder-trees).
Tresco has a fascinating wartime history, when boats disguised as Breton fishing boats were sent out from here to drop SOE operatives on the french coast, and bring back others bearing intelligence home. Those returning from Occupied France were debriefed in a wooden hut on the Eastern side of Tresco which, till very recently, still contained the old secure phone system linking the hut directly to the War Office in London.
St Agnes
St Agnes, most southern of the inhabited Isles of Scilly, is the most southerly island in the British Isles. It is connected to the island of Gugh by a sandbar which is covered when the tide comes in. St Agnes has a grade 2 listed church with beautiful stained-glass windows, almost on the beach, and a lighthouse dating from 1680 (although it no longer operates). Just beneath it is the most unusual snowman you’ll ever see.
One of the island’s most notable landmarks is its lighthouse, which was decommissioned in 1911. It has an interesting history: it was built in 1680, and has gun ports (an unusual feature for a lighthouse). It was only the second lighthouse to be built in the western approaches (the Lizard lighthouse being first, in 1619). The original construction was by Captains Hugh Hill and Simon Bayly (who also built the 1676 Lowestoft lighthouse). There were two protests against the building of the St Agnes light: one from the Isle of Wight (fearing they would lose revenue from harbour dues as shipping would prefer to use Scilly) and one from the Governor of Scilly objecting that he would lose money from wrecks!
The island of St Agnes is a mixture of rocky coastline, heath and grassland. It has a dairy farm, well known for making Isles of Scilly Troytown ice cream, whilst the Turk’s Head lays a claim to being Britain’s most scenic pub which is hard to refute. Ancient remains have been found at Obadiah’s Barrow, and a nine-foot granite menhir called the Old Man of Gugh has been standing since the Bronze Age. Beady Pool is a sheltered beach on the southern side of the island. Small ceramic beads, from a Dutch cargo ship wrecked nearby in the 17th century, are sometimes found there. Out in the St Mary’s channel to the West of St Agnes, marking the treacherous Spanish ledges, is the Spanish bell, the focus of a particularly lovely song by the Rough Island Band who used the sound of the bell as their opening note.
St Martins
St Martin’s (in Cornish it is called Brechiek, meaning dappled island’) is the most northerly inhabited island in Scilly. It has three main settlements – Higher Town, Middle Town and Lower Town. Its daymark (a navigational aid) was built in 1683 and is the earliest surviving beacon in Britain. It is painted in red and white bands and has been since 1833. Its arched entrance door is incorrectly dated 1637. the walk up to the daymark is beautiful, offering fabulous views out to the North and to the Eastern Isles. It is hollow, but the door was sealed long ago.
There is a vineyard, the most South-Westerly vineyard in England, where tours and tastings are offered, and red, white and rose wines are made. There’s also a wonderful jeweller, Fay Page, selling gold and silver jewellery made on and inspired by the islands, a hotel with a wonderful laidback air and a lawn overlooking the quay, and an amazingly good pub, the Seven Stones, which has one of the best summer lunch views in the world. If you’re really lucky, the Pie Trio may be playing. It is named after the rocks which lie between the Scillies and the mainland which some believe are the last remaining tip of the lost land of Lyonesse. The circular coastal path around St Martins is fringed with spectacular white beaches with steep granite cliffs to the east and vast tidal rockpools to the west. Take a picnic and a swimsuit and you will want for nothing.
White Island
White Island lies off the coast of St Martin’s, and is joined to it by a tidal causeway. Access to the island can be dangerous when the causeway is covered by the sea, as there are strong currents across it, which can sometimes give the appearance of a standing wave (there is also a much smaller White Island off the coast of Samson). It has a ruined entrance grave and several other ancient monuments, including a chambered cairn.
The Eastern Isles
‘The Eastern Isles include Great and Little Ganilly, Great and Little Ganinick, Menawethan, Nornour, the three Arthurs (Great, Middle and Little), Guther’s, Hanjague and English Island. They were inhabited from the Bronze Age through to the Iron Age and there are shrines, entrance graves and field systems there. Menawethan is a popular hang-out with seals, who are often to be found on the rocks on the eastern side.
Nornour is one of the Eastern Isles, joined to Great Ganilly at low tide: in 1962 high winds exposed uncovered hut circles there. Formal excavation led to over three hundred Roman brooches being found in the upper layers of two ancient buildings, along with coins (late first to late fourth century), glass, miniature pots and pieces of small clay figurines. It is thought that the objects were for paying respect to a local cult, which may have been a shrine to Sulis Minerva, a Celtic mother-goddess. The boilers of the Earl of Arran can be seen at low tide on the western shore – she sank there on 16 July 1872. Nornour can be approached by boat on the Western side. There’s an interesting natural amphitheatre on the Eastern side at the Northern end. With the eye of faith you could imagine the rocks on either side were once the carved faces of conquerors, and it s thought possible that, when Scilly was all one island, the main entrance to shipping was here.
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The Western Rocks
These are a group of islands and rocks to the South-West of St Marys, with the Bishop’s Rock to the west. They are best known both for breeding birds – particularly black backed gulls (greater and lesser), storm petrels and shags – and for the number of ships which have been wrecked there. Prior to 1750 sea charts showed the Scillies to be 10 miles further north than they actually are. This combined with the guesswork involved in navigation at sea prior to the ability to measure longitude, and the strong westerly storms which frequently hit the area, led to many ships being driven onto the Western rocks to their doom whilst thinking they were somewhere else entirely.
Landing on any of the islands is difficult and unsafe, even with modern GPS. It is also strongly discouraged for the sake of the breeding birds, which include European shags, European storm petrels, kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots, cormorants), fulmars, puffins, great black-backed gulls, lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls.
The named rocks include Rosevean, Rosevear and the Retarrier Ledges. The ledges are the site of the wreck of the SS Schiller, which went down in May 1875 with loss of 335 lives whilst travelling from New York to Hamburg. Many of the dead are buried in Old Town churchyard. Rosevear was inhabited by workmen during the building of the Bishop Rock lighthouse, and the remains of houses and the smithy can be seen on its flat top. The lighthouse-builders are said to have held a party there, one particularly calm night, inviting ladies and gentlemen from all the islands to dance till dawn, but there has been no long-term human occupation on the Western Rocks.
‘The Gilstone Reef was the site of the sinking of Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s naval flagship the HMS Association in 1707, with the loss of over 1400 lives. Four vessels were lost in total, and it remains one of the worst maritime disasters in British naval history. It’s said that a common sailor on the flagship, possibly a Scilly native, tried to warn Admiral Shovell that the fleet was off course and might be in Scilly waters as he and his senior officers discussed their probably location, but nobody agreed with him and the Admiral had him hanged at the yardarm for inciting mutiny.
In 1784, The packet ship Nancy also hit the Gilstone Reef. One of the 49 drowned was Ann Cargill, a famous English opera singer who had been ordered back to Britain by the Prime Minister because of her scandalous affair – in India – with the ship’s captain, John Haldane. The newspaper accounts of how she had been found “floating in her shift” drowned but holding tight to her little boy made her death as famous as her life.
Originally the dead of the Nancy were buried on Rosevear, which the lighthouse builders of Bishop’s Rock claimed was haunted by Ann’s ghost. They were later reinterred in the Old Town churchyard in St Mary’s.
St Helens
You can land on St Helen’s from a private boat. On the south side of the island is one of the earliest Christian sites in Scilly, which is thought to be the remains of St Elidius Hermitage, an 8th-century chapel lived in by Saint Lide, (also known as Elid or Elidius). The landing site is on a sandy beach on the south side where there are the remains of a granite quay. The ruined pest house is just behind the dunes: it was built in 1764 to quarantine plague cases from visiting ships calling at Old Grimsby and St Helen’s Pool. It was constructed after an Act of Parliament in 1754 decreed that any plague-ridden ship north of Cape Finisterre heading for England should anchor off this island. Sadly, lack of medical knowledge often saw sailors with non-infectious conditions like acne isolated with those with plague, measles or cholera, resulting in many deaths. There is a graveyard which is known to include the grave of a 27-year-old naval surgeon who was sent to treat the sick and died within a week himself. Nearby islands are considered to be part of the St Helen’s group, these are; Foreman’s Island, Men-a-vaur, Northwethel, Round Island and Teän.
St Helen’s has a long history of habitation – when Isaac North visited the islands in 1850 he reported goats and deer. In 1870 sheep were said to run wild. A 1919 guide book recorded St Helen’s only inhabitants as goats, deer, rabbits and sea fowl.
Teän
Tean was once inhabited, and has Bronze Age entrance graves, early Christian graves and the remains of an early Christian chapel dedicated to a saint called Theon. In 1652 Teän had only one inhabitant, but it was cultivated for some time after this. The red barbed ant, which may be the rarest resident animal in Britain, has been found on St Martin’s, the Eastern Isles and Teän.
Round Island
Round Island is most notable for its lighthouse, which was built in 1887. At the time of building it was one of three lights in the Isles of Scilly, the others being the Bishop Rock and St Agnes lighthouse. The light was modernised in 1966 and automated in 1987. Apart from those maintaining the lighthouse, landing is not permitted on Round Island, unless the light emits one white flash every ten seconds and has a visual range of up to 24 nautical miles. The fog signal sounds four blasts every minute. The island is important for its breeding seabirds, especially the European storm-petrel
Other Islands
There are dozens of other small islands in the archipelago. All are beautiful, and with your own boat and some experience of navigating the Scillies waters, or on a Scillies ‘safari’ tour, you may be able to take a look at them. Landing on most is prohibited for the protection of breeding birds – and for your own safety.
Bishops Rock
The lighthouse on Bishops Rock lies in the Southwest passage. Occasionally, if sea conditions are favourable, boats will head out from St Mary’s to show you the lighthouse from close by. It isn’t possible to land on the rock, and when Trinity House service the light (which is automated) they land on the top.
The lighthouse is a miracle of human persistence and endeavour. After the wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s squadron of the British Fleet in 1707 in which 2,000 men died (reportedly all drowning in less than ten minutes) the Elder Brethren of Trinity House decided that better lighting of the Scilly Isles – which at that time consisted of only the St. Agnes lighthouse – was a priority. They resolved to build a lighthouse on the most westerly danger, Bishop Rock, yet the rock ledge was a narrow pillar rising sheer 45m from the sea bed, and are exposed to the full force of the Atlantic Ocean where great ocean currents of the North Atlantic, churning with the echoes of storms at sea, meet their first obstacle for thousands of miles, making this one of the most hazardous and difficult sites for building a lighthouse.
James Walker, consultant engineer to Trinity House, suggested that the rock ledge was too small and the elements too powerful for a solid tower. In 1847 a screw-pile lighthouse was begun, workmen sinking cast iron legs into the granite rock. On 5 February 1850, before the building was complete, a heavy gale swept away the whole structure. Walker then built a granite tower. A dam was erected around the rock and the water pumped out, so that masons could work on dry ground 30cm below the low water mark, although they were often submerged by huge waves and had to be lashed to iron posts driven into the rock. It’s said one man would stand guard and shout when a large wave was coming, and the men below would take a deep breath, trust the rope, and wait for the water to cover them and recede again. Gradually, through their sheer determination, granite blocks were placed and dovetailed and keyed into position.
The structure took seven years to finish, the men working almost entirely in the summer. All the granite was dispatched from the mainland to the island depot where it was shaped and numbered before being sent to the rock. In all, the 35 metre tall tower contained 2,500 tons of dressed granite and cost £34,560. The light was first exhibited on 1 September 1858. During one particularly powerful storm, waves rolled up on the side of the lighthouse and tore away the 550lb fog bell from its fastenings on the gallery.
During the building of the lighthouse the men spent nights on Rosevear, the only one of the Western Rocks with enough shelter to make this possible. It’s said that, one moonlit night when sea conditions were fair and the lighthouse complete, invitations were issued and men in jackets and ladies in skirts and petticoats were rowed out to Rosevear to party the night away in celebration.
In 1881 Sir James Douglass inspected the tower and reported extensive damage. It was decided to strengthen the tower and at the same time to increase the height by 12m. The plans entailed encasing the old lighthouse with a new one. The real weakness was the foundation and this Douglass proposed to strengthen and enlarge with massive blocks of granite sunk into the rock and held there by heavy bolts. It was an enormous cylindrical base, providing the lighthouse with an excellent buffer onto which the force of the waves could be spent before hitting the tower itself. The masonry casing, averaging a metre in thickness, was carried up as far as the new masonry required for the increased height of the light. The weight of the additional granite was 3,200 tons, making a total weight of 5,700 tons. Work was completed in October 1887 at a cost of £66,000.
The Bishops Rock did not, alas, save the Schiller, which was heading for Plymouth en route to Hamburg. In thick fog the ship’s Captain, knowing he was near Scilly, had brought volunteers from the passengers on deck to try to spot the Bishop’s light. Sadly, he thought it should be to starboard, when in fact they were passing South of the Bishops Rock and it was to port. The Schiller headed straight onto the Retarrier Ledges, it was battered by the sea all night. Although it had fired its minute guns to signal disaster, it had become customary for ships passing the islands to fire their minute gun to signal they were safely through and the alert was not sounded till morning.
The lighthouse was converted to automatic operation in 1991. The last keepers left in December 1992, and the fog signal was discontinued in 2007. It still has regular service visits and, incredibly, the original stone structure has needed no structural maintenance since Sir James Douglass left.
Travelling between the Islands
There are several boating companies based on several of the off islands, offering excursions and water taxi services throughout Scilly.
Winter Schedules
These are much more limited. If you are familiar with Scilly in winter you will know that most people take their boats off the water, and whilst ppassenger services continue, they are subject to demand, wind, sea and tide. If arriving by Skybus, make sure that you have clarified onward arrangements to get to your respective island.
Fogo Island – A long way off Island
Fogo Island, in the Canadian province of Labrador and Newfoundland, is not one of the off islands, but it nearly was. If you head 2090 miles due west from Bryher you will come ashore on Fogo Island. At exactly the same latitude as the Isles of Scilly, Fogo sits off the island of Newfoundland, Canada
Fogo Island looks a little like Scilly – the rock formations and heathers are similar. Although it is larger, about 90 sq miles, its permanent population is only about 2500. Some of its wildlife is the same – seals live offshore, whales pass by, cod swim in the seas, lobsters breed and puffins arrive in late May and gannets are plentiful. There are also dramatic differences. Icebergs are still floating by in June, thanks to the southbound Labrador current. The tidal range is only a few inches, and there is still snow on the ground in late May. Fogo is home to coloured ‘saltbox’ Newfoundland houses, to caribou, bald eagles, Icelandic gulls and the blue jay. Somewhere offshore lies the Titanic – Fogo is almost the nearest landfall to where the ship went down. A Marconi radio transmitting centre on top of a hill transmitted news of its distress. First colonised in the 16th century by Breton and Irish fisherman, and once home to a thriving cod fishery, Fogo Island has reinvented itself for developed crab and lobster fisheries and tourism.
It is obviously not a Scilly island, but it once was. Two hundred and fifty million years ago Fogo and Scilly were quite literally joined together. The Atlantic rift split them, tearing the continents apart. Fogo Island and Scilly are long-lost twins, born of the same rock, separated by fate. So, when you look out to the west from Scilly, remember the land didn’t always end with Bryher, St Agnes or the Western Rocks. Once there was more.