The Isles of Scilly (, ; ) are a small archipelago in Cornwall, England, approximately south-west of Land's End. One of the islands, St Agnes, is over further south than the most southerly point of the British mainland at Lizard Point, and has the southernmost inhabited settlement in Cornwall and the UK, Troy Town.
The total population of the islands at the 2021 United Kingdom census was 2,100 (rounded to the nearest 100). A majority live on one island, St Mary's, and close to half live in Hugh Town; the remainder live on four inhabited "off-islands".
Scilly forms part of the ceremonial county of Cornwall and was historically one of the hundreds of Cornwall. Since 1890, the islands have had their own local authority, the Council of the Isles of Scilly, which is administratively separate from the mainland Cornwall Council, although some services are provided by it.
The adjective "Scillonian" is sometimes used for people or things related to the archipelago. The Duchy of Cornwall owns most of the freehold land on the islands. Tourism is a major part of the local economy along with agriculture, particularly the production of cut flowers.
Name Scilly was known to the Romans as , a Latinisation of a Brittonic name that became Cornish , or in modern spelling. The name is of unknown origin, but has been speculatively linked to the goddess Sulis. The English name Scilly first appeared in 1176, in the form Sully. The unetymological c was added in the 16th century in order to distinguish the name from the word "silly", whose meaning was shifting at this time from "happy" to "foolish".
In French, they are called the , from Old Norse (incorporating the suffix ). Mercator used this name on his 1564 map of Britain, causing it to spread to several European languages.
History
Early history
The islands may correspond to the Cassiterides ("Tin Isles"), believed by some to have been visited by the Phoenicians and mentioned by the Greeks. While Cornwall is an ancient tin-mining region, there is no evidence of this having taken place substantially on the islands.
During the Late Roman Empire, the islands may have been a place of exile. At least one person, one Tiberianus from Hispania, is known to have been condemned c. 385 to banishment on the isles, as well as the bishop Instantius, as part of the prosecution of the Priscillianists.
The isles were part of the Brittonic Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia. In the later Sub-Roman period, c. 7th century AD, the remaining Britons were split into three separate regions: the West (Cornwall), Wales and Cumbria– (Strathclyde). The isles may have been a part of these polities until a short-lived conquest, by the English, in the 10th century was cut short by the Norman Conquest.
It is likely that, until relatively recent times, the islands were much larger, and perhaps conjoined into one island named Ennor. Rising sea levels flooded the central plain around 400–500 AD, forming the current 55 islands and islets (if an island is defined as "land surrounded by water at high tide and supporting land vegetation"). The word is a contraction of the Old Cornish (, mutated to ), meaning 'the land' or 'the great island'.
Evidence for the older, large island includes:
A description, written during Ancient Roman times, designates Scilly "" in the singular, indicating either a single island or an island much bigger than any of the others. Remains of a prehistoric farm have been found on Nornour (now a small, rocky skerry far too small for farming). includes a description of over 250 Roman fibulae found at the site. There once was an Iron Age British community here that continued into Roman times. This community was likely formed by immigrants from Brittany—probably the Veneti—who were active in the tin trade that originated in mining activity in Cornwall and Devon. At certain low tides, the sea becomes shallow enough for people to walk between some of the islands. This is possibly one of the sources for stories of "drowned lands", e.g. Lyonesse. Ancient field walls are visible below the high tideline off some of the islands, such as Samson. Some of the Cornish-language place names also appear to reflect historical shorelines and former land areas. The whole of southern England has been steadily sinking, in opposition to post-glacial rebound in Scotland: this has caused the rias (drowned river valleys) on the southern Cornish coast, e.g. River Fal and the Tamar Estuary.
Offshore, midway between Land's End and the Isles of Scilly, is the supposed location of the mythical lost land of Lyonesse, referred to in Arthurian literature (of which Tristan is said to have been a prince). This may be a folk memory of inundated lands, but this legend is also common among the Brythonic peoples; the legend of Ys is a parallel and cognate legend in Brittany, as is that of in Wales.
Norse and Norman period
In 995, Olaf Tryggvason became King Olaf I of Norway. Born 960, Olaf had raided various European cities and fought in several wars. In 986 he met a Christian seer on the Isles of Scilly. He was probably a follower of Priscillian and part of the tiny Christian community that was exiled here from Spain by Emperor Maximus for Priscillianism. In Snorri Sturluson's Royal Sagas of Norway, it is stated that this seer told him:
The legend continues that, as the seer foretold, Olaf was attacked by a group of mutineers upon returning to his ships. As soon as he had recovered from his wounds, he let himself be baptised. He then stopped raiding Christian cities, and lived in England and Ireland. In 995, he used an opportunity to return to Norway. When he arrived, the Haakon Jarl was facing a revolt. Olaf Tryggvason persuaded the rebels to accept him as their king, and Jarl Haakon was murdered by his own slave, while he was hiding from the rebels in a pig sty.
With the Norman Conquest, the Isles of Scilly came more under centralised Norman control. About 20 years later, the Domesday survey was conducted. The islands would have formed part of the "Exeter Domesday" circuit, which included Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire.
In the mid-12th century, there was reportedly a Viking attack on the Isles of Scilly, called by the Norse, recorded in the —Sweyn Asleifsson "went south, under Ireland, and seized a barge belonging to some monks in Syllingar and plundered it." (Chap LXXIII)
"" literally means "Mary's Harbour/Haven". The name does not make it clear if it referred to a harbour on a larger island than today's St Mary's, or a whole island.
It is generally considered that Cornwall, and possibly the Isles of Scilly, came under the dominion of the English Crown for a period until the Norman conquest, late in the reign of Æthelstan ( 924–939). In early times one group of islands was in the possession of a confederacy of hermits. King Henry I (r. 1100–1135) gave it to the abbey of Tavistock who established a priory on Tresco, which was abolished at the Reformation.
Later Middle Ages and early modern period
At the turn of the 14th century, the Abbot and convent of Tavistock Abbey petitioned the king,
William le Poer, coroner of Scilly, is recorded in 1305 as being worried about the extent of wrecking in the islands, and sending a petition to the King. The names provide a wide variety of origins, e.g. Robert and Henry Sage (English), Richard de Tregenestre (Cornish), Ace de Veldre (French), Davy Gogch (possibly Welsh, or Cornish), and Adam le Fuiz Yaldicz (possibly Spanish).
It is not known at what point the islanders stopped speaking the Cornish language, but the language seems to have gone into decline in Cornwall beginning in the Late Middle Ages; it was still dominant between the islands and Bodmin at the time of the Reformation, but it suffered an accelerated decline thereafter. The islands appear to have lost the old Brythonic (Celtic P) language before parts of Penwith on the mainland, in contrast to its Welsh sister language. Cornish is not directly linked to Irish, Scottish Gaelic or Manx, which fall into the Celtic Q group of languages.
During the English Civil War, the Parliamentarians captured the isles, only to see their garrison mutiny and return the isles to the Royalists. By 1651 the Royalist governor, Sir John Grenville, was using the islands as a base for privateering raids on Commonwealth and Dutch shipping. The Dutch admiral Maarten Tromp sailed to the isles and on arriving on 30 May 1651 demanded compensation. In the absence of compensation or a satisfactory reply, he declared war on England in June. It was during this period that the disputed Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War started between the isles and the Netherlands.
In June 1651, Admiral Robert Blake recaptured the isles for the Parliamentarians. Blake's initial attack on Old Grimsby failed, but the next attacks succeeded in taking Tresco and Bryher. Blake placed a battery on Tresco to fire on St Mary's, but one of the guns exploded, killing its crew and injuring Blake. A second battery proved more successful. Subsequently, Grenville and Blake negotiated terms that permitted the Royalists to surrender honourably. The Parliamentary forces then set to fortifying the islands. They built Cromwell's Castle—a gun platform on the west side of Tresco—using materials scavenged from an earlier gun platform further up the hill. Although this poorly sited earlier platform dated back to the 1550s, it is now referred to as King Charles's Castle.
The Isles of Scilly served as a place of exile during the English Civil War. Among those exiled there was Unitarian Jon Biddle.
During the night of 22 October 1707, the isles were the scene of one of the worst maritime disasters in British history, when out of a fleet of 21 Royal Navy ships headed from Gibraltar to Portsmouth, six were driven onto the cliffs. Four of the ships sank or capsized, with at least 1,450 dead, including the commanding admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell.
There is evidence of inundation by the tsunami caused by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.
Geography
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago of five inhabited islands (six if Gugh is counted separately from St Agnes) and numerous other small rocky islets (around 140 in total) lying off Land's End. Troy Town Farm (Troytown Farm) on the southern part of the southernmost inhabited isle, St Agnes, is the southernmost settlement of the United Kingdom.
The islands' position produces a place of great contrast; the ameliorating effect of the sea, greatly influenced by the North Atlantic Current, means they rarely have frost or snow, which allows local farmers to grow flowers well ahead of those in mainland Britain. The chief agricultural product is cut flowers, mostly daffodils. Exposure to Atlantic winds also means that spectacular winter gales lash the islands from time to time. This is reflected in the landscape, most clearly seen on Tresco where the lush Abbey Gardens on the sheltered southern end of the island contrast with the low heather and bare rock sculpted by the wind on the exposed northern end.
Natural England has designated the Isles of Scilly as National Character Area 158. As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose sea thrift (Armeria maritima) as the "county flower" of the islands.
Island Population(Census 2001) Area Density Main settlement km2 sq mi per km2 per sq miSt Mary's 1,666 Hugh TownTresco 180 New GrimsbySt Martin's (with White Island) 142 Higher TownSt Agnes (with Gugh) 73 Middle TownBryher (with Gweal) 92 The TownSamson–(1) - Annet – - St. Helen's – - Teän – - Great Ganilly – - Remaining 45 islets – - Isles of Scilly 2,153 Hugh Town (1) Inhabited until 1855.