Tidal island with Art Deco hotel.
The white Art Deco hotel on Burgh Island went up in 1929, built for the film producer Archibald Nettlefold and later run as a fashionable retreat for the well-off. Agatha Christie stayed here and drew on the island for two of her novels, And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun. The Pilchard Inn, by the beach, has served drinks since 1336 and is open to all, unlike the hotel. On top of the island, the ruins of a medieval chapel were later used as a huer’s hut, where a lookout would shout to guide fishing boats onto shoals of pilchards. The sand crossing from Bigbury-on-Sea is only safe at low tide; check the tide times before you set out. Once the water is in, the hotel’s sea tractor, a tall vehicle on stilts, carries people across instead.
