White-sand archipelago off Land’s End, reached by boat or plane.
Off the tip of Cornwall, low granite islands and skerries, small rocky islets, scatter across a shallow sea, well over a hundred of them all told, ringed by clear water and pale sand. Only five are inhabited. St Mary’s is the largest, with the main harbour and town, and Tresco has the subtropical Abbey Garden. St Martin’s has some of the best beaches, while St Agnes, the most southerly, is joined to its small neighbour Gugh by a sandbar at low tide. Bryher is the smallest of the five, its west coast open to the full Atlantic swell. Samson, a short boat ride from any of them, was cleared of its last families in 1855 and is now a day trip rather than somewhere to stay. About 2,100 people live across the islands, most of them on St Mary’s, and the Duchy of Cornwall owns most of the land.
Getting there means a ferry or a flight, and both depend on the weather, so it helps to allow some slack around a trip. The Scillonian III sails from Penzance, and Skybus flights connect St Mary’s with Land’s End, Newquay and Exeter. Once you’re there, small boats run between the islands through the season, with the day’s sailings chalked up each morning at St Mary’s quay.
