ARE THE ISLES OF SCILLY WORTH VISITING?
Each of the inhabited islands has a distinctive character, and some of their uninhabited neighbours benefit greatly from the lack of human interference. Sturdy passenger boats criss-cross the shallow sound that divides them all. On St Mary’s there are wide, white beaches and rocky coves. The town is flanked by a 16th-century fortress – now a hotel – and its graveyard is the resting place of the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who had a holiday home on the island. Tresco, sheltered from the Atlantic storms and warmed by the Gulf Stream that brings spring to the islands soon after Christmas, offers the extraordinary Abbey Gardens – luxuriant terraces of more than 5,000 subtropical plants, some of which flower all winter and are unique in the northern hemisphere. Bryher and St Martin’s have superb beaches, and St Agnes exists in a contented time-warp, with a patchwork of small fields bordered by tall hedges, just like rural England of yesteryear. Dainty shops sell bulbs and postcards
