Rosemary Parslow - The Isles of Scilly

Close to the pool on the brow of Great Popplestone Bay, as well as elsewhere on short turf, grows a lovely red form of white clover, Trifolium repens var. townsendii , often in its most extreme form with purple-red flowers and almost black leaves. And as you walk over the short turf here the unmistakable scent of chamomile rises about you. Spring squill, which is otherwise uncommon in Scilly, is at its best on Bryher. It grows in the short maritime turf along the slopes above Hell Bay, along much of the west side of the island and also below Samson Hill. Even when the flowers are over, the leaves persist for a while, lying curiously twisted on the ground as though they have been poisoned.

On the granite carns where the thin soils become desiccated in summer are areas of typical plant communies (see Appendix) which include plants such as common bird’s-foot Ornithopus perpusillus , bird’s-foot-trefoil Lotus corniculatus , English stonecrop, buck’s-horn plantain, some of the tiny grasses such as silver hair-grass Aira caryophyllea and in a few places the rare orange bird’s-foot. Nearby, heathers, grasses and taller plants grow where there are deeper soils, and in some years the tiny orchid, autumn lady’s-tresses, also appears here. Where moisture is retained over the granite platform there may be one or two discrete patches of small adder’s-tongue fern.

Shipman Head Down in the north of the island is an extensive area of ‘waved heath’, the wind-eroded heath that is one of the most important habitats in the Isles of Scilly. The dominant species are ling, bell heather and western gorse, with common gorse forming dense scrub along the southeast edge and extending down towards the coast. This is where spring squill can be found on top of the plateau, as well as several species of rare lichens. Getting to Shipman Head itself can only be accomplished by a scramble down steep rocks. The promontory is accessible for a short time at low water across the very deep cleft that separates the Head from the main bulk of the island. Colonies of seabirds are able to breed on Shipman Head in relative isolation.

One curious little gem of social history that has revolutionised visiting Bryher was the building of what the islanders humorously call ‘Annekey’ or Anneka’s Quay. This is a pontoon landing on the beach just north of the old stone quay, built during 1990 as part of one of Anneka Rice’s TV programmes, Challenge Anneka . This new landing enables boats to get in to Bryher when the tide is too low to land elsewhere. The only alternative in the past was to run the boat up the beach and land passengers by a plank from the bow.

Tresco and Bryher face each other across the narrow channel that forms the sheltered anchorage of New Grimsby Harbour. Tresco is the second largest and arguably the best known of the Isles of Scilly, on account of the famed Abbey Gardens. The island is just over 3km long and 1.7km wide, and covers approximately 298 hectares. At the north end is one of the most extensive areas of waved heath in the islands, on a plateau some 30 metres high. Across the middle of Tresco, almost dividing the island in two, is the long, water-filled gash that is the Great Pool, with the Abbey Pool slightly to the south. North of Great Pool is a broad band of farmland that stretches to Old Grimsby on the east coast (Fig. 40). South of Great Pool are the Abbey Gardens and woodland around Tresco Abbey. Beyond the Gardens and on the eastern side of the island are extensive sand dunes and stretches of dune heathland. Other than rocky Gimble Porth, and the northern fringes of the island, the coastline of Tresco is mainly composed of dunes and sandy beaches.

General impressions of Tresco tend to be coloured by the presence of the Abbey Gardens and the farm, and especially the very large area of planted woodland that dominates the landscape. The island has a much more managed atmosphere than the other off-islands. This may be partly due to its history, but is mainly because almost the whole island is under one tenancy and has been mostly managed as one estate for a very long time. The present incumbent of Tresco, Robert Dorrien-Smith, took on the estate in 1973.

Even before the visitor reaches the Gardens their influence and that of the tenure of Augustus Smith and the Dorrien-Smith family is evident everywhere on Tresco. Apart from the gardens themselves, this influence is most evident in the sand dunes around Appletree Banks and Pentle Bay, where a hotch-potch of exotic plants have become established among the native dune species. Throughout the dunes are clumps of rhodostachys, the very similar Tresco rhodostachys Ochagavia carnea , bugle lily Watsonia borbonica, Agapanthus praecox

FIG 40.Old Grimsby Harbour, on the east coast of Tresco, June 2002. (Rosemary Parslow)

and red-hot pokers Kniphofia sp. growing among the marram, with balm-leaved figwort, Babington’s leek and sand sedge Carex arenaria . Where the dune has become flattened and consolidated, dune grassland and heathland have formed. Rushy Bank, just beside the road from the landing at Carn Near quay, is particularly interesting, with many unusual plants: orange bird’s-foot (found some years growing all along the edge of the concrete road) and small adder’s-tongue fern can be found here, and on the heathers nearby are rich growths of lichens, including some of the lungworts. Also beside the road at Carn Near there are banks of the extraordinary wireplant moulding itself over the other vegetation in a parody of topiary. Below the dunes, at the back of the beach, is one of the very few places where a few plants of the rare shore dock Rumex rupestris grow among the masses of the coastal form of curled dock Rumex crispus var. littoreus (see Chapter 9). As this section of coast is actively eroding, the future of this shore dock site is probably limited.

Tresco has its own heliport, opened in 1983 (Fig. 41). The island has a hotel, the first to be established on an off-island, and an established time-share business. With the draw of the Gardens, Tresco attracts more visitors than any of the islands other than St Mary’s. The heliport is on a beautiful mown stretch of grassland just beside the Gardens and is well worth looking at (but not when

FIG 41.Tresco, looking north from Oliver’s Battery across coastal dunes, the heliport and plantations, April 2005. (Rosemary Parslow)

helicopters are landing!). Like the airfield on St Mary’s it frequently attracts feeding waders and other birds. In autumn it can be one of the places to look for rare pipits and larks.

Towards the edge of the Abbey Pool (Fig. 42) the grassland is seasonally waterlogged so a band of marsh pennywort, lesser spearwort and other wetland plants extends all round the edge, and similarly around the south side of the Great Pool. When Borlase visited Tresco in 1756 he commented on ‘a most beautiful piece of fresh water edged round with Camomel Turf, on which neither Brier, Thistle, nor Flag appears. I judged it to be half a mile long, and a furlong wide.’ The chamomile turf is still there but no longer so extensive. The fine silt drawdown zone (much enriched by droppings from gulls and waterfowl) around the edge of the Abbey Pool supports a variable array of tiny wetland plants, depending on how much mud is exposed. During periods of drought some of the submerged aquatic plants become visible as the water level drops, and those growing on the mud spread quickly; six-stamened waterwort Elatine hexandra , for example, on these occasions can turn the surface of the mud bright red. Abbey Pool has a resident population of wild and domestic waterfowl, but like anywhere in Scilly it has seen some notable rarities at times.