This morning we were greeted with the sight of a Fred Olsen cruise ship in the bay. It is called Borealis and has a normal complement of 1,360 passengers. St Mary’s only has a population of 1,700 so we were expecting the town to be over run. Fortunately either the boat is empty or most passengers stayed on board as there did not seem to be many more people in town.
We have been exploring the island of St Mary's bit by bit. It is only 2.5 square miles but the tourist board have designed four guided walks which we are doing slowly so as not run out of things to occupy us.
The islands were quite crowded in the bronze age, over 90 burial chambers have been found on the islands as well plenty of village remains and standing stones. We have visited a number of them on St Mary’s, being so close together it begs the question if they were separate communities or if there was an overall leader or administration.
The Romans were also here and a huge collection of Roman brooches were found in the 1960's on what is now an uninhabited island. There were 300 of them, perhaps a Roman collector or they were offerings to a god although why offer a brooch – the god of clothing? They are now on display in the local museum.
From Elizabethan times the islands have been considered strategically important so there are quite a number of gun positions and a castle although they were never fired in anger against either the French or Spanish.
It was the last place in England to remain in Royalist hands during the civil war, they carried on after the rest of the country became the Commonwealth under Cromwell and were effectively pirates with their own castle in the middle of the English Channel.
In 1651 a combined force of Dutch (who had lost a number of ships to the pirates) and English managed to firstly capture Tresco and then laid siege to St Mary’s. eventually the Royalists/pirates surrendered in return for free passage.
When the Dutch first arrived the Admiral in charge, on behalf of the Netherlands, declared war on the Isles of Scilly. Once the surrender was signed the Dutch fleet sailed home and everything seemed in order until 1985 when a local Scilly historian wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London to see if there was any evidence to support the local legend that the islands were, after 335 years, still at war with the Netherlands. To everyone’s surprise, the embassy uncovered a series of documents which confirmed they were! Fortunately in April 1986 the Dutch ambassador to Britain visited the Islands and a peace treaty was signed.
Tomorrow we are off to vist another island - St Agnes, it has the most remote pub in the British isles - a full report will be broadcast in due course.