Also called St George’s Island, Looe Island sits about a mile off East Looe, a low green hump you can see from the harbour. Two sisters, Babs and Evelyn Atkins, bought it in 1965 and lived there for decades; when Babs died in 2004 the island passed to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, which now runs it as a nature reserve. A few stones are what’s left of a chapel built in 1139, when Benedictine monks had a small outpost on the island. Grey seals haul out on the rocks at the back of the island, and gulls and other seabirds nest undisturbed most of the year. Day boats run from East Looe from around Easter to the end of September, weather and tides permitting, landing for a couple of hours at a time so visitors can follow the self-guided trail around the island. Looe, the fishing town across the water, has the nearest shops and station.
© Derek Harper / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
