Two round hills joined by a strip of low ground make up Samson, uninhabited since 1855, when Augustus Smith, the Lord Proprietor of Scilly, moved the last families off. The roofless walls of their cottages still stand in the dip between North Hill and South Hill, along with older, prehistoric burial mounds on both summits, put up by people who farmed here in the Bronze Age. South Hill has one of Scilly’s largest colonies of lesser black-backed gulls, and pyramid orchids grow in the dunes below. The whole island is protected as a nature reserve, with no one living there. There’s no quay. Boats from St Mary’s, Tresco and Bryher land on the beach, tides and weather allowing, and in summer some run evening picnic trips out to the island. From the top of either hill you can see all three.
