Looe Island, Cornwall
First screened 1 March 2009

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Cornwall Wildlife Trust: St George's Island
www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk/naturereserves/
Nature_reserves_Cornwall_Wildlife_Trust/
St_Georges_Island/
Cornwall Wildlife Trust is a registered charity, founded in 1962, which is involved in the many aspects of conserving Cornwall's wildlife and wild places. The charity was bequeathed Looe Island in the will of its former owners, the two English spinster sisters, Evelyn and Babs Atkins. Now commonly known as St George's Island, it is open to visitors from Easter to September.

Monasteries: a short history
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/
timeteam/snapshot_monasteries.html
From their early origins in Egypt to Henry VIII's dissolution in the 1530s, this potted history of the monasteries sets Glastonbury Abbey's medieval sponsorship of the chapel on Looe Island in its wider context.

The medieval era
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/
timeteam/medieval.html
The Time Team website has a wealth of material on the medieval era. Check here for links to other programmes from the period and a wide range of background information.

Time traveller's guide to medieval Britain
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/
history/guide12/index.html
Everything the intrepid time traveller needs to navigate their way through medieval Britain.

Further reading

The Looe Island Story: An illustrated history of St. George's Island by Mike Dunn (Polperro Heritage Press, 2005) £7.95
Author Mike Dunn traces Looe Island's history from earliest times, describing its inhabitants and their smuggling activities in the 18th and 19th centuries as well as the Atkins sisters who owned it for many years.

We Bought an Island by Evelyn E Atkins (Fowey Rare Books, new edition, 1999) £6.95
Tales from Our Cornish Island by Evelyn E Atkins (Coronet Books, new edition 1987)

'…I picked up a couple of anoraks, an oilskin, two sou'westers and an assortment of woolly hats. At the first sign of small boats approaching I peered over the hedge on the clifftop by the house, glaring as fearsomely as I could. I then ducked down, donned a hooded anorak, glared again, ducked, changed to a sou'wester and so on, ducking, changing and glaring until my supply of headgear was exhausted. Then, gathering up all my props, I raced down the path until I found a suitable gap in the hedge on the cliff edge there, and repeated the performance. I hoped that I had given the impression that at least twenty angry people were awaiting any intruders.' Evelyn Atkins, on repelling boarders.

Back in 1965 two English spinster sisters, Evelyn and Babs Atkins, bought Looe Island. In the first of these books, We Bought an Island, Evelyn shares the experiences of discovering, purchasing, and relocating to the place. The book ends as they spend their first night in Island House, their new home.

Ten years later, Evelyn wrote the sequel, Tales from Our Cornish Island, which takes up the story on the morning of the sisters' first full day on the island, and follows it over subsequent years as experiences and tales accrue: daffodil farming, treasure hunting, beekeeping, gardening, assorted pets and livestock, mechanical emergencies, storms and isolation.

The Islanders: From the Barren Mewstone to Looe Island, the smuggler's Cornish haven by John Trelawny (Lulu.com, 2006)
In 1775 a man was sentenced to be transported for seven years to the Mewstone, a barren rock off Plymouth Harbour in Devon. When he had served his sentence he took the tenancy of Looe Island in Cornwall. His family prospered through their involvement in the flourishing trade of smuggling into Cornwall from the Channel Islands and France. This is the story of how a convicted felon was able to take over a fertile and prosperous living and bring up his family over three generations. It is a novel, based on a scattered and incomplete trail of true events.

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