Cornwall's Secret Seasides: Scilly's St Martins Has Some of the Best

Discovering the Best Sand in Britain: St Martin’s, Isles of Scilly

Sand is a very important topic when it comes to seasides – secret or otherwise – people often ask which beaches have the best sand, partly because the stuff comes in so many forms…

Lawrence’s Bay, St Martins

The answer is simple – but you’re going to have to travel 28 miles west of Land’s End to walk barefoot in it. The beaches of St Martin’s in the Isles of Scilly have amazing white sand. It is the Rolls Royce of granular geology – the fluffy-lightweight version of something that, at the other end of the scale, can be heavy, cloying and damp.

The Fine White Sands of the Scillies – Famous Beyond the Islands

The sand you find on some Scillonian beaches is so fine that islanders used to export the stuff so that it could be used in those early pepper-pot-like blotters which writers used before the invention of blotting-paper.

Great Bay, St Martins

I don’t know whether William Shakespeare ever said: “Pass me the Scillonian,” so that he could shake the fine white grains all over his still wet, inky, words of wisdom but, if he didn’t, one hopes that at least he had some idea of the glorious place from which the magical dust hailed.

Solitude and Beauty: Why St Martin’s Beaches Are the Best

Few small islands in Europe can boast such beaches as St Martin’s. As I say, some of the other Scillonian isles can boast fine sand as well, but there is something about the big white shores of this particular island which do the trick for me.

Even in high summer you can find yourself alone on these wonderful strands – which itself is utterly extraordinary given how gorgeous they are. Visit this most northerly of the inhabited Scillonian isles at this time of year and you are more or less guaranteed solitude.

Arriving on St Martin’s and Exploring the Island on Foot

In most tidal conditions the inter-island boats will take you to Lower Town Quay at the St Martin’s western tip, but the last time I went our boatman deposited us at the southerly end of the island and from Higher Town Quay we were able to fork right and walk along the dune lined path past Little Arthur Farm.

This rather idyllic establishment looks as though it ought to be nestling somewhere in one of those innocent and harmless BBC TV series they have on Sunday nights. Lambs frolic, goats do much the same, and when I was there a young bull was playing with the redundant roof of a pick-up truck – chucking it about the field as if it were some hapless matador.

Par Beach, St Martins

The Big Three Beaches – And a Hint of White Island

The beach here is one of the big three on St Martin’s – unless, that is, you count a fourth which strictly speaking belongs to neighbouring White Island – but more of that in a minute.

Walking the Coast: Circumnavigating St Martin’s

To explore these beaches it’s best to do something which all the Scillonian isles somehow beg you to do – by which I mean circumnavigate the island using the little coastal paths which each boasts.

So, walk along this first curving white beach to English Island Point where there's an excellent view of the uninhabited and mysterious Eastern Isles. From here the island begins to show its more rugged face as the path wends its way across the rocky downs towards the Daymark.

You can't miss this building - it's a 45 foot high edifice which, windowless and doorless, is painted with bright red and white stripes. It has only one other feature, albeit an inaccurate one: an inscription claims the place was built in 1637, but apparently 1683 would be closer to the truth.

Secret Beaches and Cold War Secrets at Great Bay

Now the walk turns westward along St Martin’s wilder northern coast, passing first the oddly named Bread and Cheese Cove. Out to sea you can watch the swell uneasily breaking over the Santamana Ledges and thank the Lord you're not trying to tack past them in a gale.

Soon the path passes Wine Cove, which is a modest introduction to the splendid white sweep of Great Bay. And if I was to give just one of St Martin’s amazing littorals the Secret Seaside crown, this would be it.

Indeed, if I was to make a shortlist of the 10 best beaches in the region, then Great Bay would be in the top three.

When I last lolled upon its soft, gleaming, white acres I noticed a big hawk, later identified as a Gyr Falcon, a feathered visitor which is about as common as hens’ teeth in the UK.

A huge green net lay spread across the fine white sand and you could imagine merry hell such a thing could play with the propeller of any passing boat had it not been washed ashore.

A Secret History: Cold War Torpedo Trials on St Martin’s

But, as I sat on the beach, I recalled another visit I made to the island years ago on behalf of this newspaper. It was the brightest day of the summer of 2003 and we needed our sunglasses as we walked from one end of St Martin’s to the other. But, after we met two islanders, we were taken inside a cottage, the curtains were closed and we were cast into an impenetrable gloom…

In a way, the darkness was a fitting introduction for what we were about to witness – a secret, clandestine world that has been shrouded in a hush-hush wall of Cold War silence for half a century. Terry Perkins and his brother Derek had agreed to show me a video taken from an old cine-eight film and soon we were watching the faded, fuzzy, black and white images of the secret torpedo trials of St Martin’s - top-secret experiments that were once conducted around the back end of the island far away from prying eyes.

St Martins tractor has seen better days

Few people witnessed the dramatic, low-level sorties of the experimental bombers - but the Perkins brothers did. And on that hot summer day nine years ago they told me how they and a handful of other islanders were held in thrall by the exciting menace of the Cold War world that suddenly invaded their tiny island.

A Boy's Own Adventure on a Top-Secret Beach

Being boys, the pair showed a particular fascination for the world of intrigue that had arrived on their maritime doorstep. After all, low flying aeroplanes, explosions and bouncing missiles are the stuff of Boy’s Own adventures.

Jetsam, a net on Great Bay

“They started with Swordfish bi-planes and then went on to twin-engined aircraft and also the Wyvern single engine plane which was fast,” remarked Terry as we watched the old film. “They came in fast, at about 200 mph - about 100 feet high - along the back of the island and zoom across half a mile or even a quarter of a mile out when they dropped the torpedoes.

“They were trying different heights, speeds and different tails – that sort of thing. Whack and splash, they went in – they used to hit the water and bounce like a porpoise.”

“They almost dropped a torpedo on to the beach once,” said Derek. “The aeroplane was belching smoke and its engine was spluttering and popping. It just made it back to the airport on St Mary’s – and his torpedo dropped in the water just off the beach. That’s as close as they ever got to hitting the island.”

Talk about secret seasides – Great Bay was once officially designated as top secret…

Kid goats on St Martins

Towards the West: Top Rock Hill and White Island

Today such explosive, arcane, Cold War goings-on seem very off indeed as you wander west along the beach to Top Rock Hill, which you have to round to reach the western shores of the isle.

Beyond this to the north there is White Island – and if the tide is out you can wander across the bar and pretend you are Robinson Crusoe on your very own desert island.

And Robinson Crusoe you will temporarily be if you don't keep an eye out for the tide.

St Martin’s Southern Shoreline: A Taste of Madeira

Back on St Martin’s you can wander around Tinkler’s Hill to discover the last of its magnificent beaches. The stretch along the southern underbelly of the island between Lower Town and Middle Town is one of my favourite pieces of England, partly because it reminds me of being somewhere else entirely. More Madeira than St Martin’s...

Exotic shrubs line the way, punctuated by the occasional lordly pine, in which a thousand birds chatter and fuss in the sunshine. The big sandy sweep of Lawrence’s Bay or St Martin’s Flats makes up the island’s south-west shoreline – and although it isn’t quite as secret as the other beaches we’ve discovered, it comes close to coastal perfection nevertheless.