Island 541 - Chapel Rock, Bude, Cornwall

Chapel Rock is linked to the mainland of Cornwall at Compass Point, Bude by a stone breakwater.  It is called Chapel Rock because there was once a small chapel on the top of it.  A flight of stairs leads to a viewing platform at the top of the island.

The first breakwater was built in 1819 by Bude Harbour and Canal Company to provide a sheltered anchorage for boats using Bude Canal.  When the tide was low, boats used the channel of the River Neet.  The breakwater was narrow and it was destroyed by a storm in 1828.  

The present breakwater was built between 1839 and 1843.  The core of the breakwater is clay and rubble and it is faced with granite and limestone blocks.  It is only about 4 feet above high water level during spring tides and it was designed to allow waves to pass over it.  On the day I visited it was an hour before high tide and a few waves were almost reaching the top of the breakwater. 

Sir Thomas's Pit was dug by Sir Thomas Acland as a sea bathing pool between Chapel Rock and Barrel Rock in 1859.  It was for use by men only.

Breakwater leading to Chapel Rock

Chapel Rock

Bude from the top of Chapel Rock

Looking north west from Chapel Rock

Island 501 - Chapel Rock, Marazion

Chapel Rock lies to the south of the village of Marazion in Mounts Bay, Cornwall.  It is more of a rock than an island but it does have some grass growing on it (although not enough to keep a sheep happy for very long).  Its main use is as a mid-tide landing place for the St Michael's Mount ferry and for this reason steps have been constructed up onto the top of Chapel Rock.

St Michael's Mount from Chapel Rock

St Michael's Mount from Chapel Rock

St Michael's Mount from Chapel Rock

St Michael's Mount from the top of Chapel Rock

Steps up onto Chapel Rock

Chapel Rock

Island 302 - Trethias Island, Treyarnon Bay, Cornwall

Trethias Island is a small rocky tidal island at the southern end of Treyarnon Bay on the North Cornwall coast.  The day of my first visit in March 2014 was a neap tide and there was still about 10 metres of water between me and the island even at low tide.  I was staying in the nearby youth hostel and later the same day got talking to my room mate, who said that she and her brother had climbed to the top of it as teenagers and then had great difficulty getting back down again!  She confirmed that at a low spring tide the sand between the island and the cliffs was dry.

I returned in October 2015 and timed my visit to coincide with a low spring tide. I was able to climb up onto the island to about the level the highest tides reach, although in stormy conditions the waves break much higher than this.  Trethias Island definitely has enough grass to graze a sheep.  However the sheep would have great difficulty getting onto and off the island!  This was my 31st and last new island of 2015.  Roll on the 2016 island collecting season.

 Trethias Island across Treyarnon Bay

Trethias Island at a low neap tide - this was the closest I could get

What a difference a low spring tide makes

- the narrow gap between the island and the mainland has almost completely dried out

Looking north from Trethias Island up Treyarnon Bay

 Treyarnon Bay from Trethias Island

 Trethias Island

Trethias Island from the mainland

Island 210 - Newquay/Towan Island, Newquay, Cornwall

This island is referred to both as Newquay Island and Towan Island.  It is a small rocky tidal island located on Towan Beach on the north coast of Cornwall in the middle of the town of Newquay.

The island has a single house built on the summit, which can only be accessed via a private suspension bridge.  The house was sold at the end of 2012 and is now available to rent as self-catering holiday accommodation.  The house has been renamed The House in the Sea and it isn't cheap to rent - up to £5000 for a week in peak season!  For that reason I contented myself with a climb up from the beach on the south side of the island.  I climbed up above the high tide level and sat there in the sunshine for the required 10 minutes.  It looked like there was once a footpath leading up to the house from the beach but it had been blocked off a few metres above the high tide level and is now overgrown anyway.



Towan Island looking west

Towan Island looking west



 The suspension bridge doesn't show up clearly against the sky

Towan Beach, Newquay - looking east

Towan Island - the suspension bridge from below

Island 157 - Porth Island, Cornwall

I have never seen Porth Island mentioned in any book about British islands. However it definitely is an island.  I visited several hours before high tide on a dull and very windy afternoon in October 2011 and there was a lot of seawater under the short footbridge that links it to the mainland at Porth, which is just north of Newquay on the north coast of Cornwall.  The gap between the mainland and the island is only about 10 metres.

 Porth Island from across the bay

 Short footbridge connecting Porth Island with the mainland

 Blowhole looking north east towards Whipsiderry

More oystercatchers than I have ever seen in one place.  I think they were waiting for the weather to improve! Looking south west towards Newquay

 Looking down into the blowhole. 
When there was a particularly big wave the spray reached up well above ground level

 Long narrow Geo at the western end of the island

 The highest point on the island

  A very narrow rocky and slippery path leads around the western end of the island.

 Looking south east towards Porth

 This rock is apparently known as Norwegian Rock
It is located directly to the north of the footbridge

I visited in 2006 to look for a geocache but had forgotten that it is an island.  It isn’t very large but has several interesting natural features including cliffs, a blowhole and a geo.

It was populated in the Bronze and Iron Ages.  There are 2 Early Bronze Age barrows on Trevelgue Head, which is at the western end of the island  and is the highest point on the island.  These consist of cists (stone lined boxes) containing cremated human remains, which were then covered with an earth mound.  There was an excavation of the barrows in 1840 by Canon Rogers and in 1872 led by William Copeland Borlase Neolithic flint tools have also been discovered on the island. 

There was a major excavation on the island in the summer of 1939 led by C.K. Croft Andrew but the work was halted by the start of the Second World War.  A survey was carried out by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit in 1983.  There was a farm on the island in the Iron Age with a large roundhouse of 4.5 metres in diameter, which was probably a meeting place, with several smaller roundhouses located around it.  There was a terraced field system. Evidence from the remains of the middens indicates that sheep, cattle and goats were kept and deer were also eaten.  More than 4,000 sherds of decorated pottery were found along with glass rings and beads, querns for grinding corn and spindle whorls for spinning wool. The remains of iron, tin and copper smelting activities were also found – furnaces, ore roasting pits and slag.

There are the eroded remains of 8 large earth and stone ramparts and rock cut ditches (5 on the mainland and 3 on the island), which formed an Iron Age cliff castle.

 Later Roman pottery and coins have also been discovered on the island.

Today the island is uninhabited and not grazed, except by rabbits.  It is grass covered with wildflowers such as thrift.  There are a couple of interpretation boards, which were erected in 2007 with historical and archaeological information and an artist’s impression of what the island would have looked like in the Iron Age.  It is popular with dog walkers and there were some people fishing off the rocks when I visited.

Island 128 - Constantine Island, Cornwall

I actually visited this island for a geocache back in 2004 but at the time wasn't convinced it was big enough to be an island but I passed by again while walking along the South West Coast Path in July 2011 and have decided that it has just about enough grass to graze a sheep on it.  It isn't named on the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map but it is known locally as Constantine Island, due to its location at the north end of Constantine Bay.  It is about 100 metres long by 50 metres wide and can be accessed from north end of the beach at Constantine Bay on the North Cornwall coast at low tide with a small scramble over some rocks.

I revisited in March 2014 and the scramble up on to the island looks much harder than it used to be.  It was raining, so the rocks were wet and slippery.  Maybe on a summer day it would have been easier.  

In 2007 a human skeleton from the Bronze Age was discovered in a cist (small stone lined box) on the seaward side of the island.  It was identified as an adult male and was located on top of a sandy mound, which contained bones from at least 4 other bodies.  A piece of Neolithic pottery was located below the mound and Mesolithic flints were found in the area.

 Constantine Bay on a very windy morning at high tide - the island is barely visible through the spray.

 

Constantine Island on a sunny afternoon at low tide  

 The best access up onto the island is on the right hand side of the photo

 Just for a moment, I thought I had found a dead person's hand, then I realised it was a rubber glove!

Constantine Bay and Island at low tide in March 2014

Island 120 - Looe or St George's Island, Cornwall

Looe or St George's Island is situated less than a mile off the coast at Looe in Cornwall.  Its two names seem to be used interchangeably.  The island is about 600 metres long at its widest part by 400 metres wide.  I visited for an afternoon in April 2011.

The island can be accessed by the Islander boat from Looe.  However it doesn’t operate to a published timetable, which makes it difficult to plan a visit if you aren’t staying in Looe.  The boat only operates 2-3 hours each side of high tide from Easter to September and weather permitting.  If you are staying in Looe for a few days there is a board on the harbour railing with a sheet for you to book your place. If you are making a special journey as I was then I suggest you contact Tim the boatman in advance to check sailing times.

You get 2 hours ashore, which is long enough to explore the island quite thoroughly.  There is one main circular path round the island and a shorter one from the information centre to the Chapel site.  Laminated sheets with details about the history and wildlife are available from the information centre for you to walk around the island with.  The wardens are very knowledgeable and friendly and are happy to answer any questions about the island. At very low spring tides it is possible to walk/wade across to the island.  Deer have occasionally been known to find their way to the island either by swimming or wading from the mainland.

Local legend says that Joseph of Arimathea visited Cornwall and left Jesus who was a child at the time on Looe Island while he traded for tin from Cornish miners.  It is thought that this is the reason that a chapel was built on the island c1139 and another at Hannafore on the mainland opposite the island.  It was part of Glastonbury Abbey until the late 13th century and 2 Benedictine monks were living there in around 1200.  by the early 16th century it had become a chantry - a place where the Courtenay family who owned the island at the time paid someone to say prayers for them, in the hope they would get to heaven as a result.  In 1547 all chantries become possessions of the English Crown.  The island was known as St Michael's Island until after 1588 and it was also previously known as St Nicholas's Island.

There have been many shipwrecks around the island and it was used by smugglers who hid their contraband in the caves around the island.

In 1743 the island was bought by Edward Trelawny, a local MP and Governor of Jamaica.  It was leased out to various tenants who farmed it and it remained part of the Trelawny estate until 1921.  In 1830 coastguards posted to the island to watch out for smugglers.  

After 1921 it changed hands several times until 1965 when it was bought by 2 sisters - Babs and Evelyn Atkins, who set up a pottery there and welcomed visitors.   Evelyn Atkins, who died in 1997 aged 87, wrote two books about their life on Looe Island, which are fascinating and inspiring accounts of island life - We bought an Island (1976) and its sequel Tales from our Cornish Island (1986).  Babs Atkins died in 2004 and she bequeathed the island to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

 

The island is small but perfectly formed and has a surprising variety of landscapes for such a small island.  The north eastern side, which is protected from the wind by a hill is covered with trees, the south east side is where the 3 houses and their vegetable gardens are located and the western side is maritime grassland, which is grazed by Hebridean sheep.  The island is home to a colony of grey seals and to a large number of greater black backed gulls as well as shags, cormorants and oystercatchers.  The trees were planted around 1870.

 

There is a compost toilet on the island and the tractor shed doubles as an information centre and small shop.  There is no café on the island but I did buy some excellent runner bean chutney made by one of the wardens.

Looe Island from Hannafore

Looe Island from the Hore Stone

Island House

This was built by the Customs Service to keep a watch on possible smuggling activities in the area

Island House and Jetty Cottage in the background

All that remains of an ancient chapel on the highest point on the island

On the top of the highest point on the island (45 metres) there are a very few remains of St Michael’s Chapel.  Time Team paid a visit in 2008 to excavate the site.  They drew up a plan of the building, and below the floors the team uncovered the burial of a man and a piece of pottery dating to the 13^th century. There is a World War 2 bomb crater near the chapel remains on the island.

Looking towards Hannafore from the Tractor Shed

 

Looking towards the SE corner of the island and Little Island

 

Smuggler's Cottage

 

Ferry from Looe

Several boatmen run trips around the island but this is the only ferry that it allowed to land on it.

 Babs Atkins' grave in a peaceful spot on Looe Island

Island 119 - Asparagus Island, Kynance Cove, Cornwall

Asparagus Island is a small grass covered tidal island at Kynance Cove on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.  It is so called because wild asparagus used to grow on it.  It is possible to climb to the top and there is a geocache on the top.  However I thought I would probably have been able to get up it but I wasn't sure about getting down again, so I just sat for a while on the rocks and explored a small cave underneath it. 

Asparagus Island is only accessible for an hour or so either side of low tide.  In the summer I'm sure it is a very popular spot but when I visited on a showery day at the end of October 2010 there was no one else around.  The island is separated from the mainland by a beach of beautiful pale yellow sand.  Kynance Cove is owned by the National Trust and there is a café there.  It is about a half a mile walk from the car park down to the cove.

Kynance Cove

Asparagus Island with Gull Rock and The Bishop further out to sea behind it.

Asparagus Island

Cave underneath Asparagus Island