White Island (, "facing the mainland" or "white island" ) is one of the larger unpopulated islands of the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

, part of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, and lies off the coast of the northernmost populated island of the group, St Martin's, to which it is joined by a

tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet T ...

, or

isthmus An isthmus (; : isthmuses or isthmi) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea count ...

. The island is designated as a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

(SSSI) and a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

site and is managed by the

Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust The Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, formed in 1985, is a Wildlife Trust covering the Isles of Scilly, a group of islands off the coast of Cornwall. It became the 46th member of The Wildlife Trusts in 2001 and is dedicated to ensuring that the a ...

on behalf of the

Duchy of Cornwall A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or queen in Western European tradition. There once existed an important difference between "sovereign ...

.White Island
(pdf file) (

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

, 1989), accessed 1 November 2011 Access to the island can be dangerous when the rocky causeway is covered by the sea, as there are strong currents across it. This White Island should not be confused with a much smaller island of the same name, which lies off the coast of

Samson SAMSON (Software for Adaptive Modeling and Simulation Of Nanosystems) is a computer software platform for molecular design being developed bOneAngstromand previously by the NANO-D group at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science an ...

History

The uninhabited island lies off the north coast of St Martin's. It is about Rosemary Parslow, ''The Isles of Scilly'' (London: HarperCollins, 2007); and until comparatively recently was part of St Martin’s.Charles Thomas, 'Recent Fieldwork in the Isles of Scilly' in ''Cornish Archaeology'', vol. 14 (1975), pp. 87–94 In 1814 the area of the island was estimated as fifty

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s. At the north-east end of the island a fragment of altered

killas Killas is a Cornish mining term for metamorphic rock strata of sedimentary origin which was altered regionally by the Variscan orogeny and then locally by heat from the intruded granites in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall. The term is ...

, which at one time covered a much wider area, could be seen in 1911. In common with the larger island, the place names are mostly English with the exception of Camper on the south-east coast (meaning tide race or roost in Cornish) and Porthmoren, a place on the west of the shingle and boulder bar that separates the two islands. In Cornish ''moren'' is a girl, or maiden, and ''porth'' is a landing place. The north-west of the island rises to a height of and is topped by a ruined entrance grave. There are also other

ancient monument An ancient monument can refer to any early or historical manmade structure or architecture. Certain ancient monuments are of cultural importance for nations and become symbols of international recognition, including the Baalbek, ruins of Baalbek ...

s, including a

chambered cairn A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...

and several other

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

s, To the south, and sheltered by the hill, are six small mounds or cairns.White Island
at megalithic.co.uk, accessed 17 April 2012Council of the Isles of Scilly
Shoreline Management Plan
at ciscag.org Two walls indicating a bank and ditch

field system The study of field systems (collections of fields) in landscape history is concerned with the size, shape and orientation of a number of fields. These are often adjacent, but may be separated by a later feature. Field systems by region Czech Repub ...

are also present. An examination of one cairn in 1975 showed that it was about across, possibly double walled on the north side and probably too small to be a

hut circle In archaeology, a hut circle is a circular or oval depression in the ground which may or may not have a low stone wall around it that used to be the foundation of a round house. The superstructure of such a house would have been made of timber an ...

. Only part of the island is scheduled as an Ancient Monument, but the county archaeological unit has recommended that the whole island should be scheduled.Jeanette Ratcliffe, ''The Archaeology of Scilly'' (Truro: Cornwall Archaeological Unit, 1989);

Natural history

White Island is designated as a SSSI because of the waved maritime heath, maritime grassland, breeding seabirds and for the sequence of

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

deposits in the cleft of Chad Girt which almost cuts the island in two. The sequence of

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

deposits is as follows: * A

raised beach A raised beach, coastal terrace,Pinter, N (2010): 'Coastal Terraces, Sealevel, and Active Tectonics' (educational exercise), from 2/04/2011/ref> or perched coastline is a relatively flat, horizontal or gently inclined surface of marine origin, ...

* Granitic

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple ani ...

known as Porthloo

Breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

; named after the site on St Mary’s * Gravel that underwent

solifluction Solifluction is a collective name for gradual processes in which a mass moves down a slope ("mass wasting") related to freeze-thaw activity. This is the standard modern meaning of solifluction, which differs from the original meaning given to i ...

known as Hell Bay Gravel (Bryher) which consists of

clasts Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus,Essentials of Geology, 3rd Ed, Stephen Marshak, p. G-3 chunks, and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks b ...

and

loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...

from glacial material in the Irish Sea * Head with erratics named after the nearby site on St Martin’s (Bread and Cheese Breccia). Because it lies on the northern edge of the archipelago, the island is particularly exposed to high winds and salt spray. Consequently, the thin skeletal soil is covered in wind-blown maritime heath made up principally of western gorse (''

Ulex gallii ''Ulex gallii'', the western gorse or dwarf furzeA R Clapham, T G Tutin, E F Warburg, ''Flora of the British Isles'', Cambridge, 1962, p. 332 is an evergreen shrub in the pea family (Fabaceae), native to the Atlantic coasts of western Europe: sou ...

''), bell heather (''

Erica cinerea ''Erica cinerea'', the bell heather, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae, native to western and central Europe. Description It is a low, spreading shrub growing to tall, with fine needle-like leaves long arranged in ...

'') and heather (''

Calluna vulgaris ''Calluna vulgaris'', common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus ''Calluna'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found wide ...

''). English stonecrop ('' Sedum anglicum''), bird's-foot trefoil (''

Lotus corniculatus ''Lotus corniculatus'' is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae. Common names include common bird's-foot trefoil, eggs and bacon, birdsfoot deervetch, and just bird's-foot trefoil (a name also often applied to other ''Lotus'' spp.). It ha ...

'') and heath bedstraw (''

Galium saxatile ''Galium saxatile'' or heath bedstraw is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is related to cleavers. ''Galium saxatile'' is a perennial mat-forming herb, found on grassland, moors, heaths and woods. It can reach a height o ...

'') can be found growing among the heath and gorse. On the deeper soils, bracken (''

Pteridium aquilinum ''Pteridium aquilinum'', commonly called bracken, brake, pasture brake, common bracken, and also known as eagle fern, is a species of fern occurring in temperate and subtropical regions in both hemispheres. Originally native to Eurasia and North ...

'') dominates, with bramble (''

Rubus fruticosus ''Rubus fruticosus'' L. is the ambiguous name of a European blackberry species in the genus ''Rubus'' (part of the rose family). The name has been interpreted in several ways: *The species represented by the type specimen of ''Rubus fruticosu ...

'') and honeysuckle (''

Lonicera periclymenum ''Lonicera periclymenum'', common names honeysuckle, common honeysuckle, European honeysuckle, or woodbine, is a species of flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae native to much of Europe, North Africa, Turkey and the Caucasus. It is foun ...

''). Along the western coast of the island is a small area of maritime grassland with the usual Isles of Scilly species of red fescue (''

Festuca rubra ''Festuca rubra'' is a species of grass known by the common name red fescue, creeping red fescue or the rush-leaf fescue. It is widespread across much of the Northern Hemisphere and can tolerate many habitats and climates. It is best adapted to w ...

''), thrift (''

Armeria maritima ''Armeria maritima'', the thrift, sea thrift or sea pink, is a species of flowering plant in the family Plumbaginaceae. It is a compact evergreen perennial which grows in low clumps and sends up long stems that support globes of bright pink flow ...

''), common scurvygrass (''

Cochlearia officinalis ''Cochlearia officinalis'', common scurvygrass, scurvy-grass, or spoonwort, is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. The plant acquired its common name from the observation that it cured scurvy. Description ''Cochlearia offic ...

''), buck’s-horn plantain (''

Plantago coronopus ''Plantago coronopus'', the buck's-horn plantain, is a herbaceous annual to perennial flowering plant in the family Plantaginaceae. Other common names in the US and Italy include minutina and erba stella. Description ''Plantago coronopus'' pro ...

'') and sea beet ('' Beta maritima''). In April 2001 the first confirmed Scillonian record (since 1967) of the RDB gilt-edged lichen ('' Pseudocyphellaria aurata'') was found on White Island. A widespread and frequent species in the tropics, often found in

Macaronesia Macaronesia (; ) is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic, North Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of list of islands in the Atlantic Oc ...

but rare on mainland Europe, this is a UK Biodiversity Action Plan Priority species and is protected under schedule 8 of the

Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (c. 69) is an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom implemented to comply with European Council Directive 79/409/EEC on the conservation of wild birds. In short, the act gives protection to native species ...

Breeding birds

Four species of

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the subfamily Larinae. They are most closely related to terns and skimmers, distantly related to auks, and even more distantly related to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed ...

and one species of

petrel Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the phylogenetic order Procellariiformes. Description Petrels are a monophyletic group of marine seabirds, sharing a characteristic of a nostril arrangement that results in the name "tubenoses". Petrels enco ...

breed on White Island. They are Great Black-backed Gull (''

Larus marinus The great black-backed gull (''Larus marinus'') is the largest member of the gull family. It is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger which breeds on the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic in northern Europe and northeastern Nort ...

''), Lesser Black-backed Gull ('' L fuscus''), Herring Gull ('' L argentatus''), Kittiwake ('' Rissa tridactyla'') and the Fulmar ('' Fulmarus glacialis'').

References

External links

Photograph of the causeway
at geograph.org.uk

at karenible.com
White Island
at The Megalithic Portal

at UK & Ireland Genealogy {{DEFAULTSORT:White Island, Isles of Scilly Uninhabited islands of the Isles of Scilly Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the Isles of Scilly Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1971

History

Natural history

Breeding birds

See also

References

External links