Coastal defences built up over three centuries around St Mary's Garrison headland, from Elizabethan Star Castle to Second World War pillboxes
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
During the civil war, the future Charles II sheltered on this headland above Hugh Town for a few weeks in 1646, and the Royalist garrison surrendered that same year; a revolt two years on put the headland back in Royalist hands until Admiral Blake’s guns forced a final surrender in 1651. Its walls began a good sixty years earlier, though, as an Elizabethan precaution. Sir Francis Godolphin, the Cornish landowner who governed the Isles of Scilly, started fortifying the site in the 1590s, worried that Spain might send a second Armada after the failed one of 1588. Star Castle, now a hotel, was the core of his scheme, with a wall studded with four bastions, angled points that let defenders see up and down its length, built across the headland’s neck to guard the landward side.
Generations kept adding to the defences. Abraham Tovey, the site’s master gunner, extended the walls across most of the headland between 1715 and 1742; you can still see his neat, squared Georgian stonework next to the rougher Tudor granite it replaced. Fresh guns went in during both World Wars. Nearly a thousand servicemen were stationed on the headland in the First, and pillboxes were built into the older batteries when it served as a signal station during the Second.
Most of the walls are free to walk today, looping much of the headland above the harbour — only a short stretch to the north-east stays closed. Harry’s Walls, a fort from the same Elizabethan period, stands across the harbour, within sight of the wider Isles of Scilly. Along the walk, look out for the Second World War pillboxes still built into those older Georgian batteries.
