I must also acknowledge the team at HarperCollins, especially Richard West, who read the first draft, Helen Brocklehurst and Julia Koppitz, and above all Hugh Brazier, for many improvements to the text.
To my son Jonathan (Martin) Parslow and daughters Annette and Helen, who shared the early visits to Scilly and still love Scilly as much as I do, I dedicate this book.
It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils.
John Masefield, The West Wind
ALTHOUGH MASEFIELD probably did not have the Isles of Scilly in mind when he wrote those lines, they often remind me of the islands. In the early days of the year the low hills are brown with dead bracken stems and heather and there are daffodils and narcissus everywhere (Fig. 1). Seabirds wheel and call and often the climate is quite mild and balmy.
The rocks and islands that form the Isles of Scilly are located about 45 kilometres (28 miles) southwest of Land’s End. Mysterious, romantic and beautiful, they have long exercised the imagination of storytellers and historians, and legends abound that the Isles were once the lost islands of Lyonnesse or the undersea land of Atlantis. Or they may have been the islands known to the Greeks and Romans as the Cassiterides, the Tin islands, although there is little evidence of there having ever been any significant tin-mining on the islands.
The hills in Scilly are not high: most are under 45 metres, and the highest point is near Telegraph on St Mary’s, 49 metres above chart datum. The Isles of Scilly archipelago forms a roughly oval-shaped ring of islands in shallow seas of fewer than 13 metres in depth, except for the deep channels of St Mary’s Sound between St Agnes and St Mary’s, Smith Sound between St Agnes and Annet, and the deep waters towards the Western Rocks. Among the main group of islands are extensive sand flats the sea barely covers, with less than three
FIG 1. February on St Agnes, with daffodils flowering among the dead bracken. (Rosemary Parslow)
metres depth of water over much of the area at high tide, and with wide sand spits and shallows. At low water St Martin’s may be inaccessible by launch.
When you fly into the islands you first see the low-lying islands of the Eastern Isles looking green and brown with vegetated patches and rock (Fig. 2). Often the sand spits in the turquoise sea over the sand flats are revealed before you descend over the neat fields and cultivated land of St Mary’s to land on the airfield (Fig. 3). From the air the huge number of tiny islands and the many reefs and rocks under the water show how easily so many hundreds of ships have been wrecked in Scilly over the centuries (over 621 known wrecks have been recorded) (Larn & Larn, 1995). Even today, with depth gauges, GPS and radar, as well as more accurate charts, ships and other craft still get into trouble among the islands every year.
The inscription on an eighteenth-century map based on Captain Greenville Collins’ Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot survey (Fig. 4) refers to one of the most notorious Scilly shipwrecks, in addition to several other features of the islands:
The Ifands of Scilly are very fruitfull abounding in Corn & Pasture, here are plenty of Conies, Crains, Swans, Herons, Ducks, & other Wild Fowl, thefe Islands were Conquer’d by Athelstana Saxon King, & have ever since been Counted part of
FIG 2. The Eastern Isles: the view from Great Arthur towards Little Ganilly and St Martin’s. (Rosemary Parslow)
FIG 3. A patchwork of bulb fields, St Mary’s, February 2004. (Rosemary Parslow)
FIG 4. Eighteenth-century map of the Isles of Scilly, probably based on the Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot survey by Captain Greenville Collins, first published in 1693.
Cornwall: they are about 60 miles from the Lands End in Cornwall & are reckoned to be 145 in number; one of them called Scilly which gave name to the rest was counted ye chief, but St Mary’s has now got the preeminence; they are dangerous to be approach’d by strangers on account of the hidden Rocks & have been fatal to many Ships of our own Nation, & particularly to Sr. Cloudsley Shovel with 3 other Men of War who where all lost here on the 22. of Oct. 1707 at night, on their return home from the Siege of Toulon. There is however a safe passage from these Islands, where Ships are furnish’d with Pilots from the Place; and there are secure Harbours in them large enough to receive the Royal Navy: & particularly at St Mary’s, where there is a commodious Harbour & a Castle built by Queen Elizabeth.
Although there is an island called Scilly Rock off the west coast of Bryher that is reputed to have given its name to the group, this is probably not so. In the Middle Ages the name for all the islands was variously Sullia or Sullya, becoming Silli later. The current spelling as ‘Scilly’ is a more recent form to prevent confusion with the word ‘silly’ (Thomas, 1985). The islands are usually referred to as the Isles of Scilly or Scilly, never the Scilly Isles!
There are five islands that are now inhabited, plus some forty or so uninhabited (by people, that is – rather arrogantly we ignore the other inhabitants) and large enough to have vegetation on them, and then a further 150 or so rocks and islets. The figure cannot be definite as every stage of the tide changes one’s perspective as land is alternately exposed and hidden by the sea. From the isolated Bishop Rock with its tall lighthouse in the southwest of the group (Fig. 5) to Hanjague, east of the Eastern Isles, is 17.5 kilometres, and the archipelago
FIG 5. The Western Rocks and the Bishop Rock, the westernmost point of the Isles of Scilly, with resident grey seals. (David Mawer)
extends some 13km from north to south. The islands have a total land area of about 1,641 hectares or 16km2, more of course at low tide when more land is uncovered (Table 1). Situated on latitude 49° 56’ N and longitude 6° 18’ W, the islands are on the same latitude as Newfoundland, but the climate under the warming influence of the Gulf Stream is very different. Although the islands are part of Watsonian vice-county 1 (West Cornwall) for recording purposes, they are often treated as vice-county 1b for convenience. All the islands fall within four 10km grid squares, with most of the land being contained within just three, the fourth square being mostly water.
TABLE 1. The Isles of Scilly: areas of the principal islands. Areas are all in hectares at MHWS. (Figures from Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust)
Isles of Scilly total area at MHWS = 1,641ha
Total area at LAT (lowest astronomical tide) = 3,065ha
Number of islands (includes rocks and stacks) of any size at MHWS = 818
Number of islands at MLWS = 3,825
Number > 0.03 ha at