The Isles of Scilly. Rosemary Parslow
pitch is kept short by mowing, or elsewhere by rabbit and cattle grazing. The only site in Scilly for common adder’s-tongue fern Ophioglossum vulgatum is under bracken on the edge of the meadow. Nearby in the cart ruts left by tractors in the sodden turf can be found two species of spike-rush, slender spike-rush Eleocharis uniglumis and many-stalked spike-rush E. multicaulis, as well as another rarity, early meadow-grass, and tufts of the tiny club-rushes Isolepis setacea and I. cernua.
Just west of the meadow is the harbour of Periglis. Here are the former lifeboat house and the remains of the longest lifeboat slip in Scilly, although the shallowness of the incline meant it never functioned properly. Periglis is the main harbour for the islanders’ boats and is very sheltered from most directions. There is a low dune at the back of the bay with typical dune plants including sea-kale, sea bindweed Calystegia soldanella and strandline species where the sandy beach gives way to rocks and boulders towards the north in one direction and towards the quay in the other. Burnt Island is a small island that lies to the northwest of Periglis, joined to St Agnes by a reinforced boulder-filled gabion at Ginamoney Carn. The island is low-lying and rocky, mainly covered in maritime grassland, bracken and thrift. At the furthest extremity of Burnt Island is Tin’s Walbert, a large rock promontory that can only be reached at low tide.
To the east of the meadow is a large and very rocky bay, Porth Killier, and round the next promontory into Porth Conger is the main quay where passengers and freight are landed. South of the bar which links St Agnes to Gugh is the large inlet of the Cove, in which is found the very popular small bay of Covean. Besides attracting sunbathers to its warm, white sands, this can often be the stopping-off place for migrant birds, and sometimes there are willow warblers Phylloscopus trochilus, flycatchers and other birds flitting in and out of the tamarisks and snatching flies from the sand between the sunbathers. Just above the path from Covean to the Bar is a suite of fields with very sandy soils. Most of these have a particularly impressive arable weed flora and are often very colourful with corn marigolds, the ‘whistling jacks’ gladiolus Gladiolus communis byzantinus, fumitories and smaller tree-mallow.
The whole southern part of the island delights in the charming name of Wingletang Down, an extensive stretch of maritime heath with the twin bays of Wingletang Bay on the east and Porth Askin on the west, with the rocky promontory of Horse Point at the southern tip of the island where the land falls into the sea among short maritime grassland and a great chaos of tumbled rocks. Horse Point is almost separated from the rest of the island by the two bays and a narrow sandy neck of land, and it seems highly probable that one day it will eventually be cut through. In the middle of Wingletang Bay is Beady Pool, so named because it is where the small barrel-shaped brown beads from a seventeenth-century wreck have been found. At the back of the bay yellow horned-poppy, sea-kale and sea spurge surmount the low dune bank. Shore dock once appeared in a sand pit here (illicit digging possibly having exposed buried seed), but died out after a few years to reappear in a dune blow-out on the opposite side of the island beside Porth Askin; unfortunately it soon died out there as well. Wingletang Down is very important botanically: rarities such as orange bird’s-foot and small adder’s-tongue fern grow here, but it is also the only locality in Scilly for the very rare least adder’s-tongue fern, known in Britain only from here and the Channel Islands.
St Warna’s Cove is a rocky, south-facing bay on the west of St Agnes. This section of the coast is studded by a number of huge carns that continue right around the west side of the island (Fig. 52). The cove is overlooked by a curiously shaped rock called Nag’s Head on the heathland below the distinctive outline of the coastguard cottages (Fig. 53). And close to the shore is a stone-lined well that is possibly of great antiquity – it is reputed to be close to where the saint is supposed to have landed from Ireland in his coracle. Traditionally pins should be dropped in the well to encourage storms to drive a wreck ashore! Castella
FIG 52. Granite carns at St Warna’s Cove, St Agnes, August 2003. (Rosemary Parslow)
FIG 53. The Nag’s Head and the coastguard cottages, St Agnes, July 2002. (Rosemary Parslow)
Downs, an area of rabbit-grazed coastal grassland and rough heathland further to the west, is where the Troy Town maze, actually a pebble labyrinth, is set in the turf
Gugh
The island of Gugh might be described as the sixth inhabited island, but it is usually included with St Agnes. At low tide you can cross the Bar – a sand bar, strictly a tombolo – from one island to the other. Immediately at the end of the Bar is a small area of dune and dune grassland merging into the maritime grassland fringe around the island. A dense edge of sea-holly Eryngium maritimum marks the dune edge and both sea and Portland spurge are found here with sea bindweed and other coastal plants. The grass bank at the top of the Bar is one of the few places where wild thyme grows; earlier in the year western clover and early meadow-grass are also abundant here. This is another beach where the lesser cockroach has been found. The majority of the island is wind-pruned waved heath or dense gorse and bracken, with maritime grassland around the coastal fringe and on the north and southwest of the island. The summit of Gugh
FIG 54. Named after islander Obadiah Hicks is Obadiah’s Barrow, an entrance grave on Gugh, half hidden among foxgloves and wall pennywort. June 2003. (Rosemary Parslow)
is remarkable for the number of archaeological remains that are still visible: on top of the hills that form the spine of the island are a series of Bronze Age barrows, remnants of walls and a standing stone known as the Old Man of Gugh. Another well-known barrow, Obadiah’s Barrow, lies among dense gorse on the side of the hill (Fig. 54). For a small island there is an extensive list of rare and unusual plants, lichens and invertebrates.
The former Gugh farm occupies the central area just north of the neck across the middle of the island, between the two heathy hills that make up the body of the island. Two houses now stand there; they were built by a Mr Cooper in about 1920 and they have strange curved concrete roofs, like upturned boats, designed to withstand gales (Fig. 55). When Cooper died he was buried on the island. On the east coast of Gugh is a bay with dazzling white sand called Dropnose Porth. This curious name occurs elsewhere in Scilly, so maybe this is a humorous, descriptive reference to a nearby rock. Many of the granite carns and rocks have been eroded into fantastic shapes. There is a rock near Kittern Hill at the north end of Gugh that, seen from the sea, appears to have been sculpted into a likeness of Queen Victoria – though from a slightly different angle it becomes a Red Indian brave!
The sandy neck between the two hills formed from blown sand has an unusual flora. Growing among the bracken beside the path are dog roses Rosa
FIG 55. The tide just covering the Bar (strictly a tombolo) from St Agnes to Gugh, November 2002. (Rosemary Parslow)
canina and an unidentified yellow rose (presumed an escape from cultivation). Balm-leaved figwort is very common here, despite not being found elsewhere on the island. Another plant found in this vicinity is the alien Argentine dock Rumex frutescens. This grows on the edge of the abandoned sand pit, originally dug as a reservoir. In the field below the Gugh houses from about 1933 viper’s-bugloss Echium vulgare, wild mignonette Reseda lutea and common melilot Melilotus officinalis were found, although not all have been seen recently. Their presence in the field has been attributed to the use of shoddy (a high-nitrate manure deriving from the wool industry) before 1933. In the 1960s this neck area was close-cropped grassy sward, a good place to find mushrooms, where thousands of garden tiger Arctia caja caterpillars would swarm and cuckoos Cuculus canorus would arrive to feed on them, and where wheatears would also appear on passage (J. Parslow,