Looking for the perfect place to take a staycation this year? Well, the Isles of Scilly, which are awash with natural beauty, undoubtedly need no introduction, but soon, DI Ben Kitto could be about to do for them what Bergerac did for Jersey, Morse did for Oxford, Poldark for Cornwall and Ann Cleeves and DI Jimmy Perry for Shetland.
Rumour has it that a TV series is in development, based on writer Kate Rhodes’s ‘Isles of Scilly Mysteries’ book series, which began with ‘Hell Bay’. Hell Bay, as it happens, was named after a notorious shipwreck cove on the island of Bryher, and also happens to be the title of the most westerly luxury hotel in the UK – and arguably the best seaside hotel, anywhere.
Hell Bay Hotel stands on the westerly shores of ‘the island of hills’. At 330 acres, just over one mile long and half a mile wide, it’s the smallest of the five inhabited Isles of Scilly, and can be found around twenty-eight miles off Land’s End in Cornwall.
Getting there is an adventure in itself – if you choose to view it as such. If not, then consider the journey the epitome of slow travel or trial of endurance, with a fabulous reward at the end of it. SKYBUS operates 17 seater Twin-Otter flights from Exeter airport (duration: one hour) and Land’s End (20 mins). The airport is on St Mary’s which is a short, well-sprung £10 closed boat ride to Bryher, meanwhile, helicopters land at Tresco, and there’s also a two-hour and 45 minute ferry from Penzance docks at St Mary’s.
Hotel
Arriving on Bryher at low water, you can expect to be met at the quay built by Anneka Rice in her 80s TV show, Challenge Anneka, by a 4×4 transfer to the hotel, which is just a swift five minutes away. If it’s late, you can browse the honesty box selling local succulents in the form of inedible and not very frost-hardy ‘cliff pasties’, fleshly evergreens and potted Aeonium houseplants, which makes for an intriguing welcome.
The blue and white hotel is what some might describe as being very New England, while others may see its as more of a Caribbean meets California vibe, but whichever way you choose to think of it, there’s no denying that it suits the Isles’ unique Britain-on-the-Gulf-Stream location.
Overlooking its own wildlife lagoon or, as it’s known, the Great Pool, if you’re up early enough (or arrive before golden hour), you can grab the two chairs on the Sunset Deck and enjoy a peaceful moment looking out towards the 1858-1992 Bishop Lighthouse on the horizon, where you can see Droppy Nose Point, the Gweal Hill headland and the Northern or Norrard rocks Illis Wigig, as well as miscellaneous other skerries and the rollers and white horses of the Atlantic.
The hotel has its own private art collection curated by owner Robert Dorrien-Smith – a fifth-generation relative of Augustus Smith, who first leased the Scilly Isles from the Duchy of Cornwall in 1834, and semi-seriously took the title, Lord Protector. The hotel is on the site of the most westerly settlement in Great Britain, and is quite breath-taking indeed – not just on the outside, but on the inside, too.
Rooms and suites
Built around a courtyard, there are 25 airy and tasteful suites, all of which have their own private balconies, spacious showers, Lloyd Loom furniture, Lucy-Tania soft furnishing and Egyptian cotton bed linen. And, there’s a nautical-inspired colour scheme of blues and whites, with the kind of classic, laid-back décor that makes you feel right at home.
If you’re seeking the utmost in privacy, then the Empress Suite is located in a fully detached one-story building, built to resemble a traditional gig shed. Or, for the best sea views, opt for the hotel’s premium Emperor Suite, which is spread over two spacious rooms and features a private wooden deck with quaint blue-and-white picket-style fencing and a pair of sun loungers to kick back and relax on.
Food and drink
Executive chef Richard Kearsley dishes up exceptional seafood-dominated cuisine (from sardines and scallops to John Dory to bream) in the Scillonian archipelago’s only 2 AA Rosette restaurant, which is decorated with seascapes by Richard Pearce, whose beachfront studio is in front of the hotel.
Breakfast is perhaps the most guiltless and non-greasy of experiences with hog’s pudding, kippers from unpolluted waters and local butter from happy cows the stars of the show.
In the summer, the hotel opens its Crab Shack in an old fishing net loft located within its grounds. Here, you can expect to indulge in succulent Bryher crab, caught and delivered daily by the island’s fishermen, which you can relax and enjoy in a rustic atmosphere just a stone’s throw from the ocean.
To do
The best place to enjoy the local cuisine, though, is on the seafloor. You haven’t lived or experienced Bryher until you have eaten a lobster burger or a slice of crab quiche while standing up five hundred metres out to sea, and raised your Doom Bar beer or Tarquin’s Hell Bay gin and tonic to toast the two coastlines.
The Isles of Scilly’s two Low Tide Event pop-up food festivals and farmers’ markets are held when the tide goes out between Tresco and Bryher, the next one being due to take place this year in September. You can walk between the islands at other times, but no festivities are laid on – however, it’s still worth making the effort for.
Arguably, the Low Tide events are the only social occasion where Crocs are acceptable. Even de rigeur, some might say. Gingerly, with trousers rolled, you walk from New Grimsby on Tresco, or down from the hotel across the Great Crab Ledge sand flats and submerged prehistoric field walls from Bryher, to a strand which is usually under 20’ of salt water.
The event goes back to 2015, when a group of locals had a soiree in the shallows. Noel Dashwood now provides the music, and his kazoo renditions of Simon And Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson’ and Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’ as well as some Johnny Cash, also seem to be effective herring gull deterrents.
Local products to sample are the Westward Farm rose geranium gin, Veronica Farm rosemary fudge, chowder, lobster tacos and Scilly paella, courtesy of the Pender family at ‘Island Fish.’ As well as ice cream from Troytown Farm, there are lobster pot-making and local craft demonstrations, plus a spot of rock pooling for the kids.
Back at the hotel and on call, there is a gentleman who is very proud of his granny’s toenails (a plant) – and keen to introduce you to the local dwarf pansies. Will Wagstaff – an ornithologist and a naturalist – is a wildlife guru who you sense can identify a macro moth from twenty yards just by its wingbeat, and has been giving guided flora and fauna tours for forty years.
You have to get to Heathy Hill and down on your hands and feet and all-fours to appreciate what there is to see, but again, it’s worth the effort, and you’ll leave feeling well and truly acquainted with the pretty range of plants and flowers that can be found here. The tiny viola, in fact, is only present on the Scillies – so be sure to pause to take a photograph or two.
On Bryher, he takes you past New Zealand and South African crop field windbreaks, tamarisk trees (once used for lobster pots), abandoned daffodil farms and gig sheds. Every April, along with its walking festival, the Isles host the World Gig racing regatta, and once, there were over 200 gig pilots on the islands.
He points out the Bermuda buttercups, Hottentot figs, Prides of Madeira and three-cornered leeks, which look like white bluebells, and expertly leads you to the only public loo on Bryher for a comfort stop – because, as he explains, “there are a lot of people of Bryher with binoculars”.
His tours don’t take in Bryher’s other landmark – an old telephone box which has been converted into the world’s smallest museum. The current exhibition is of postcards.
In a nutshell
There are many contenders for the great British seaside hotel – but while Carbis Bay Hotel may have its own Blue Flag beach and Saunton Sands may be in the middle of a UNESCO Biosphere, Hell Bay is in the middle of a Designated Area of Outstanding beauty. So, if you’re a nature enthusiast who is looking to get away from it all and immerse yourself in the bounty the Isles of Scilly have to offer and enjoy a relaxing and comfortable stay, then there’s no better place to check yourself in.
Factbox
Double rooms can be booked from £190 in low season and from £360 in high. Breakfast not included, but Wi-Fi is. Dinner, bed and breakfast can be booked from £280 in low season and from £450 in high. Exclusive hire of the hotel is available on request.
Address: Isles of Scilly TR23 0PR
Phone: 01720 422947
Website: hellbay.co.uk
For more information on the Isles of Scilly, head over to visitislesofscilly.com.
All imagery unless stated otherwise credit: Hell Bay Hotel
