Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides
By Madeleine Bunting
I have been visiting the Isle of Harris (pictured above) for 20 years and love its dramatic contrasts. The east coast landscape is rock and water, with small hamlets clustered in inlets that look like miniature fjords; the west coast is all dramatic sweeps of brilliant white sand and glassy turquoise water.
The brilliant green machair teems with wild flowers. Dramatic mountains rear out of the sea to the north, bordering the Isle of Lewis. No two moments are the same.
Few places can match the temple of Chaipaval near Northton. Go past the gate (with the quaint small shop and honesty box) and follow the close-cropped path to the crumbling ruins perched on the edge of the sea. High overhead, eagles circle from their hillside nesting spots. Out to sea lies the island of Pabbay in the Sound of Harris, and beyond the horizon lie St Kilda and thousands of miles of Atlantic Ocean stretching to Newfoundland.
The inlet at Northton and its meadows of sweet grasses are a haven for birds: terns, plovers, curlews – and the wistful cry of oystercatchers. After hours of walking along beaches or climbing the hills, sit in Temple Café, with its log stove, stone floors and huge windows full of breathtaking views, enjoying coffee and delicious homemade cakes, and watching the birds.
Built to celebrate the pioneering ornithologist William MacGillivray, it is now an inspired cafe, with bird books and information on the astonishing MacGillivray (from the age of 15 in the early 19th century, he would regularly walk from his home in Harris to study at Aberdeen University). For luxury, stay at Scarista House (doubles from £225, including breakfast and afternoon tea), while the Am Bothan Bunkhouse in Leverburgh is a convivial budget option (dorm beds £25).
Madeleine Bunting is the author of Love of Country, A Hebridean Journey
Bardsey, Gwynedd
By Patrick Barkham
A charismatic boatman, a stripey lighthouse, sparsely beautiful land and seascapes, singing seals, sunsets – Bardsey (in Welsh, Ynys Enlli, off the tip of north Wales’s Llyn peninsula) has every desirable feature of a small island. But another quality elevates it above other places surrounded by saltwater: it is a deeply spiritual place.
Asserted by me, this sounds fairly meaningless. But in 1120, Bishop Urban of Llandaff attracted visitors to Enlli (“isle of the currents”) by hailing it as the resting place of “20,000” saints. In medieval times, many people chose to be buried here, supposedly to obtain an easier passage to the next life.
Pilgrims still travel to Enlli, and perhaps their peaceful presence reverberates for more secular visitors. Christine Evans, a Welsh poet who is a summer resident on Enlli, believes its spiritual qualities derive from its geography. Enlli’s back – its modest mountain – is turned on the mainland to the east, so islanders are permanently oriented to the west. Sunsets trace a pathway to a sense of a world beyond.
There’s nothing to consume on Enlli beyond what’s in the tearoom and gift shop run by Jo, the island’s farmer, and that’s the point. Visitors live deeply in the moment; they climb the mountain (in 15 minutes), encircle the island (in an hour) and make their own entertainment – swim, dream, watch birds, or bees buzzing at the fuchsia, imbibe the deep wonder of the world. Visit on a day trip (£30 adult, bardseyboattrips.com, very weather-dependent), or stay longer to experience the island’s magic – book self-catering stays via the charitable trust that looks after the island (from £285 a week for two, bardsey.org).
Patrick Barkham is a Guardian journalist and author of Islander: A Journey Around Our Archipelago
Rathlin, County Antrim
By Bernie McGill
My first encounter with this island off County Antrim was as a participant in a writing festival in 2002, and I go back as often as I can. One of my favourite walks is on its south-western side at Roonivoolin: the road winds past dry stone walls and the lime-white remains of the old kelp house to Craigmacagan Lough, where water lilies float and the sheep obligingly move out of the way of walkers.
Further on, the path follows the outline of Ushet Lough, where islanders still race handcrafted model yachts. From the cliff top there are views over purple kelp beds, north to the upper island, south to the bulk of Fair Head on the mainland, and east to the lighthouse at Altacorry, site of Marconi’s early wireless experiments. The fortunate may hear the “crex crex” of the corncrake, recently returned to the island, or catch a glimpse of the island’s rare golden hare.
From the harbour, take the Puffin Bus to the RSPB West Light Seabird centre for a tour of the “upside down” lighthouse, watch fulmars and razorbills wheeling around the stacks, and puffins nesting in the cliffs from spring until early August.
There’s a range of places to stay, from the National Trust’s recently refurbished Manor House (doubles £110), comfy B&Bs, well-appointed hostels and brand new glamping pods with stunning views over the Sound. There’s pub grub at McCuaig’s Bar, snacks at the Water Shed Café, full dining at the Manor House (lobster must be ordered early so the fishermen can haul it in from the holding pots in the bay). Ferries run from Ballycastle several times daily and, in the summer, round-Rathlin cruises are available. (The next are on 6 August, 20 August and 8 September)
Bernie McGill is the author of The Watch House, set on Rathlin at the time of Marconi’s wireless experiments in 1898
Bryher, Scilly Isles
By Michael Morpurgo
Step ashore on the island of Bryher in Scilly – an archipelago of dozens of islands, five of them inhabited, 20 or more miles out into the Atlantic – and you lose your heart, at once.
The 2¾-hour sea voyage may churn the stomach, the architecture may be ordinary, the weather untrustworthy, but the island and the people are sheer joy. We have been coming to Bryher for some 40 years, with children and grandchildren. It’s about a mile-and-a-half long and, in places, only a few hundred metres wide. Walk all around the sea shore in two hours. But what a walk! Hell Bay, with its wild winds and rearing cliffs on one side, with nothing for 2,000 miles until the coast of Canada; and on the more sheltered side, beaches of glorious sand. Go to Rushy Bay and look out towards uninhabited Samson Island. Swim in clear, cold sea, with a seal or two for company. People are rare. Oystercatchers are not, they pipe at you, letting you know that although they are happy to see you, this is their place.
The crab and lobster caught by the Jenkins family are the best I have tasted: try them at Fraggle Rock Bar, where the fish and chips are also to die for. The fudge sold outside Veronica Farm is wickedly wonderful.
For a storymaker like me, Bryher is a treasure trove. High on the moors, ancient chieftains lie buried. A sword belonging to one of them was discovered only a few years ago. King Arthur himself is thought to lie in a cave under the Eastern Isles. Many of my books have been inspired by Bryher.
I wrote two books inspired by that sword, that place, one called The Sleeping Sword, and another Arthur High King of Britain. I wrote also about a whale being washed up on Bryher at the time of WW1, Why the Whales Came, and another about one of the hundreds of wrecks lying under the sea around Scilly. That one I called The Wreck on the Zanzibar. Then there was Listen to the Moon, set on Bryher, again, and on St Helens one of the uninhabited islands, with an abandoned Pest House. As I said, a treasure trove of stories and myths.
We stay near Green Bay in rented cottages, but there’s also the often-windy campsite and the comfortable Hell Bay Hotel (doubles from £95 B&B). There’s a great shop and even a tiny museum – in a telephone kiosk.
They call Scilly the fortunate isles. They are: none more than Bryher. Go, but tread softly.
Michael Morpurgo’s 2014 children’s book, Listen to the Moon, is set on Bryher
Northey, Essex
By Dixe Wills
It was Northey, on the River Blackwater near Maldon, that cemented my love of Britain’s tiny islands and moved me to write a book to celebrate them. The low-lying isle had been made deliciously mysterious by a cloak of mist. I waited impatiently for the tide to fall away from what I could make out of the (probably) Roman-built causeway, before picking my way across. Thick Essex mud shone silver in the retreating water on either side.
In 991, it was local Saxon leader Byrhtnoth’s decision to allow a party of Norse invaders across this causeway that led to his death, to the payment of Danegeld to the Viking raiders and, arguably, to Harold’s defeat at Hastings 75 years later.
Northey is a plaything of the Blackwater: the National Trust-owned island expands to 300 acres when the river is at its lowest, but shrinks to a mere 80 at spring high tides. The tidal creeks that feed the liminal salt marshes are excellent habitats for overwintering birds: the isle is internationally important for Brent geese, shelduck and widgeon, all of which can all be viewed from Northey’s hide.
The picturesque town of Maldon is just over a mile (but seemingly another world) away via a delightful riverside path, and is home to Intimo-Fresco, a family-owned Italian restaurant and a fitting place to conclude a visit after crossing that (probably) Roman causeway.
Visiting the island requires a (free) permit (call 01621 853142). The only place to stay on Northey is Northey House (sleeps 10, weekend £900, week £1,500, northeyisland.co.uk), the former home of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Sir Norman Angell. But it’s also possible to camp during the National Trust’s annual Castaway camping weekend at the end of August (sold out this year).
Dixe Wills is the author of Tiny Islands
The Calf of Man, Isle of Man
By Robert Penn
More of an islet than an island, the Calf of Man is a square mile of heather, gorse, cliffs, sea spray and soaring birds in the Irish Sea, a giant’s leap across a fast tidal race from the south-west corner of the Isle of Man. It is possible to stay overnight, but most visitors come for the day – to see the basking sharks and sunbathing seals, and to lock binoculars on the 30-plus bird species that breed here.
There are razorbills, kittiwakes, acrobatic choughs and, most notably, manx shearwaters. The breeding colony of these birds was wiped out by rats from a sinking Russian merchant ship in the early 19th century, but has been revived in recent decades. Though the Calf was farmed until the middle of the 20th century, it is now a bird sanctuary, and the only summer inhabitants are the two wardens.
Scant buildings include two disused lighthouse towers, built by the famed Robert Stevenson, and a modern, automated lighthouse. Those who wish to experience the ascetic life of a Victorian lighthouse keeper can stay in the stone farmhouse-cum-observatory, where there are eight beds (open mid-April to early September, minimum two nights, £40 for two self-catering, manxnationalheritage.im). Bring a sleeping bag, towels, and food to cook on the wood-burning stove.
Boats, run by private operators, make the half-hour crossing all summer, weather permitting, from Port Erin and Port St Mary on the Isle of Man.
There is nowhere to buy food or drink on the Calf, so bring supplies. Back on the mainland, eat Manx queenies (queen scallops) at the Fish House in Port St Mary or try the Albert Hotel for an evening pint.
Robert Penn is the author of The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees
Portland, Dorset
By Adrian Cooper
The Isle of Portland, 4½ miles long and 1¾ miles wide, is a defiant block of the Jurassic Coast, weathered by 100 million years of restless sea, anchored to the Dorset mainland by the thread of Chesil Beach. Its limestone built London – St Paul’s, the Blackwall Tunnel, the Royal Exchange – and the railway line that once carried people and stone can now be walked. Historically, inhabitants thought of themselves as not-quite English: mainlanders weren’t trusted and were called Kimberlins (strangers). Thomas Hardy described Portland as the Isle of Slingers, repeating stories of Portlanders throwing stones to keep Kimberlins away.
Nonetheless, over the past decade we have visited every year with our children, to swim off Ferrybridge, kayak on the Fleet and celebrate birthdays at the Crab House (it specialises in seafood and has its own oyster beds). We’ve explored Tout Quarry Sculpture Park and Broadcroft Quarries butterfly reserve. We’ve searched the cliffs for peregrines, visited Portland Bird Observatory, and discovered the Chiswell Earthworks land sculpture, part of Common Ground’s New Milestones project).
We’ve stayed in self-catering places such as Stonehall, once a schoolhouse (from £100 a night – but check out the Old Higher Lighthouse and camping at Sea Barn Farm).
There is a strange allure to Portland. It’s harsh in places, treeless, a challenge to our dreams of islands and visions of British seaside. Every age has left its mark. The Romans had a name for it: Vincelis. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the Vikings’ first raid on English soil was here, in 789 AD. Inigo Jones specified Portland stone for James I’s banqueting hall in Whitehall. The rich layers of history, geology and wildlife mingle and, after each visit, my affection for Portland is a little deeper cut and I want to return.
• Portland’s b-side arts festival runs from 8-16 September
Adrian Cooper is publisher-editor at Little Toller Books
Muck, Inner Hebrides
By Dan Boothby
The most impressive man I ever met was a man I met on Muck, the smallest of the Small Isles, in the Inner Hebrides south of Skye, one mile by two, low-lying, fertile (cattle, sheep, Highland ponies), population about 40. The man had hands like houses and rarely spoke and, though kind, he didn’t give a flying Lutrogale perspicillata (smooth-coated otter, to lay readers) what anyone thought of him. Everything he did – and he could turn those outsize hands of his to anything – he did well. He was the archetypal Hebridean islander.
I’d wanted to visit Muck (and Canna and Eigg and Rum) for years, obsessed as I was with the Highlands and Islands – a romantic ideal I’d built in my head from books. A friend and I had taken kayaks with us on the ferry from Mallaig. We stayed with the impressive man and his family in tiny Port Mòr. They ran a B&B back then.
By day, eyed by otters, laughing puffins and sleek grey seals, we circumnavigated Muck. We also climbed Beinn Airean for the spin-around view – lumpy Rum, the wedge of Eigg, the Sea of the Hebrides. We tramped to the white-sand beaches of the north, swam, beachcombed, and tramped back for tea and quiche at the craft shop. And in the evenings, after supper, to the peeping of going-to-bed oystercatchers and the shushing of the sea, we lit a driftwood fire, looked up at the stars and were at peace.
A Calmac ferry service to Muck and the Small Isles runs from Mallaig year-round, and MV Sheerwater offers day trips from Arisaig, from April to September. There’s accommodation for all budgets for those who want to linger (see isleofmuck.com): bunkhouse, B&B, self-catering cottages, a yurt, and wild camping (with permission).
Dan Boothby is the author of Island of Dreams
Scolt Head, Norfolk
By Patrick Barkham
The north Norfolk coast has been gentrified, for better and for worse, since I was a boy. But there is one terra incognita in most visitors’ mental maps: Scolt Head.
It’s a tidal island, a four-mile-long oblong of tawny sand dunes that from the air resembles an embryo. And Scolt is still growing with the vigour of a child, sand accumulating at its western end, where thousands of chalk-winged terns nest.
It is a place of wind, space and peace, dominated by the highest dunes in Norfolk, which deliver glorious views stretching from Lincolnshire in the north down to Sheringham. Its great capillaries of salt marsh turn purple with sea lavender in July.
Salt marsh is the last wilderness in southern Britain and few (sensibly) risk walking across them to Scolt Head at low tide, preferring the tide-dependent local boat. The island is an increasingly important sanctuary for shorebirds, so definitely don’t bring a dog and, ideally, visit outside nesting season (April to July).
Back on the mainland, there are two seafood shacks in Brancaster Staithe, as well as the excellent White Horse pub.
The only obvious human imprint on Scolt is its fairytale wooden hut, built in 1924 for Scolt’s first “watcher”, or warden, Emma Turner.
She captured Scolt’s magic – “not an indolent peace, but rather that of rest in motion” as she put it. “That first day of solitude has bitten deep into my memory; it filled me with wild joy to think that for months I should possess the island with all its mystery and loveliness.”
• Boat tours of Scolt £30 adult (brantacruises.co.uk); ferry from Burnham Overy Staithe (burnhamoveryboathouse.co.uk)
Holy Island, Northumberland
By Carol Donaldson
The seals sing to visitors on Holy Island. Their voices rise and fall across the glassy water of Coves Haven. The lament of mermaids, half sad, half beautiful, spiralling towards me. This morning, I watched hundreds of day trippers cross the causeway to descend on the island, but now they are somewhere else, off visiting the ruins of Lindisfarne Abbey or buying mead, and there is nobody to witness the song except me.
I am bowled over with joy at the seals and cartwheel down the white-sand beach, even though, at my age, I should probably give up acrobatics.
Holy Island is the place I run to when life gets tough: it’s cut off at high tide when the water covers the causeway. My mobile shows no signal and I couldn’t care less. I can spend hours wandering the five-mile coast, holing up in the dunes with a flask and a book, while the breakers roll in and the oystercatchers make their way towards me. Or I follow one of the Holy Wander leaflets: walking guides with a difference, they are full of contemplative questions to help you think about the bigger things in life.
The guides are available from the bookshop of The Open Gate (doubles from £85 B&B), which also offers organised retreats. For a more secular stay, head to the Manor House Hotel (doubles from £125 B&B) and enjoy local seafood and views of the abbey ruins.
Carol Donaldson is author of On the Marshes, an exploration of the wetlands of north Kent
• This article was amended on 3 and 7 August 2018 to state that the Banqueting House in Whitehall was built by Inigo Jones for James I, not Henry VIII or Charles I as earlier versions said.
