Rosevear ( kw, Ros Veur "great promontory") is the largest () of the group of rocks known as the Western Rocks, Isles of Scilly. The islands are on eastern side of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

on the south-west approaches to the island of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

and are renowned for the numerous

shipwrecks A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

in the area and the nearby

Bishop Rock lighthouse The Bishop Rock ( kw, Men Epskop) is a skerry off the British coast in the northern Atlantic Ocean known for its lighthouse. It is in the westernmost part of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish penin ...

. All the uninhabited islands are owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and are 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 ...

, which looks after the archaeological and historical remains on the islands, as well as the flora and fauna. Landing is not allowed on the island.

Geography

Rosevear is the largest of the Western Rocks and has a relatively flat top to . The island is situated within a group of rocks which stretches from the Round Rock of Crebawethan in the north to Pednathise Head in the south.

History

The island was used as a base camp, during 1709 and 1710, for the Herbert salvage expedition, which worked the wrecks of the ''Association'' and the other naval vessels in

1707 In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Tuesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. Events January–March * January 1 – John V is crowned King of Portugal and the Algarv ...

. The ghost of opera singer and actress

Ann Cargill Ann Cargill (born Ann Brown) (1760 – 4 March 1784) was a British opera diva and celebrated beauty whose life and death were a sensation in London at the close of the 18th century. Life Ann was born in London, the daughter of coal merchant Edw ...

, who died when the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

packet ship Packet boats were medium-sized boats designed for domestic mail, passenger, and freight transportation in European countries and in North American rivers and canals, some of them steam driven. They were used extensively during the 18th and 19th ...

'' Nancy'' sank near Rosevear on 24 February 1784, is said to haunt the island. Her body, still clutching her 18-month-old son, was originally buried on Rosevear, although she was later moved to Old Town Church on St Mary's, along with her child and Halden, the captain. In the 1840s and 1850s the island was again inhabited by workmen, this time building the Bishop Rock lighthouse. It was said that they heard mysterious music and were troubled by ghosts. Following a decision to build a lighthouse on the Bishop Rock in April 1847,

Trinity House "Three In One" , formation = , founding_location = Deptford, London, England , status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity , purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons , he ...

decided to make Rosevear the base because it was the nearest island (3.2 km) with a relatively flat area. The island was used as a base from 1847 to 1850, for the unsuccessful first attempt and for the successful construction from 1851 to 1858. Four main elements of the base remain. Two buildings, one a workers' lodge and mess and the other a workshop, are to the north-west of the complex, a slab-built platform by the east coast and a smiths hearth between the lodgings and workshop. Another building can be seen further south on the east coast. The surviving walls are from 0.4 m to 0.7 m high, with the best preserved are up to 3.0 m. The remains were designated as a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

in 1997. A ship's funnel lies amongst the rocks of Rosevear; this comes from the ''Cité de Verdun'', which was wrecked on Rosevear in 1925.Glynis Cooper, ''Rosevear: A Desert Island Story'', Historic Occasions, 2002. p4. .

Natural history

Landing on the uninhabited islands is both difficult and discouraged, and there are few published records of visits by naturalists. In 1971, the rocks and islands were designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for their breeding sea birds. A visit by

Geoffrey Grigson Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...

, in or around 1947, found a few Atlantic puffin (''Fratercula arctica''), scores of

razorbill The razorbill, razor-billed auk, or lesser auk (''Alca torda'') is a colonial seabird and the only extant member of the genus '' Alca'' of the family Alcidae, the auks. It is the closest living relative of the extinct great auk (''Pinguinis im ...

(''Alca torda''),

European shag The European shag or common shag (''Gulosus aristotelis'') is a species of cormorant. It is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Gulosus''. It breeds around the rocky coasts of western and southern Europe, southwest Asia and north Africa, mai ...

(''Phalacrocorax aristotelis'') and

great black-backed gull The great black-backed gull (''Larus marinus'') is the largest member of the gull family. Described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as "the king of the Atlantic waterfront", it is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger. It breeds on t ...

(''Larus marinus''). A heavy fall of migrants was seen on a visit by Rosemary Parslow in October 1990 with dozens of European robin (''

Erithacus rubecula The European robin (''Erithacus rubecula''), known simply as the robin or robin redbreast in Great Britain & Ireland, is a small insectivorous passerine bird that belongs to the chat subfamily of the Old World flycatcher family. About in len ...

'') and goldcrest ('' Regulus regulus''), and several yellow–browed warbler ('' Phylloscopus inornatus''); all feeding amongst the vegetation. The island has replaced Melledgan as the site of the third largest colony of

European storm petrel The European storm petrel, British storm petrel, or just storm petrel (''Hydrobates pelagicus'') is a seabird in the northern storm petrel family, Hydrobatidae. The small, square-tailed bird is entirely black except for a broad, white rump and ...

(''Hydrobates pelagicus'') in England with fifty-seven occupied sites recorded during the Seabird 2000 survey, increasing to 129 occupied sites in the repeat survey in 2006. The colony of shag on Rosevear and the rest of the Western Rocks is of national importance. During storms the sea can wash over the island, and there is a shingle community of plants with tree mallow (''Lavatera arborea''), sea curled dock ('' Rumex crispus littoreus'') and '' Atriplex'' sp. The only other species recorded are sea beet ('' Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''maritima''), common scurvygrass (''Cochlearia officinalis''), ''

orache ''Atriplex'' () is a plant genus of about 250 species, known by the common names of saltbush and orache (; also spelled orach). It belongs to the subfamily Chenopodioideae of the family Amaranthaceae ''s.l.''. The genus is quite variable and ...

'' sp, and rock sea-spurry (''Spergularia rupicola'').

References

External links

Western Rocks
including Rosevear on the

site

Geography

History

Natural history

References

External links

Further reading