The EMPEROR'S ISLE

Tresco was once a treeless and windswept island, the haunt of smugglers. Dramatically transformed by one man’s vision, it is now one of Britain’s most beautiful spots

- NATASHA FOGES

Land’s End might sound definitive, but the last piece of England before America is really 28 miles beyond Cornwall’s western tip. The Isles of Scilly, an enchanting archipelago of rocky islands (of which five are inhabited) are a tempting vision from the mainland: “an eternal stone armada of over a hundred ships, aloofly anchored off England”, as author John Fowles put it. “Mute, enticing, forever just out of reach.”

Reaching the Scillies is not so hard these days. Apart from regular ferries, 16-seater twin-engine planes make the journey an adventure in itself. As the mainland recedes, the Scillies shimmer into view like an exotic atoll: a constellation of islets set in deep azure sea, whose turquoise shallows are lined by white arcs of sand. For even greater thrills, a new scheduled helicopter service has recently launched, flying from Penzance direct to Tresco in just 15 minutes.

The Scilly Isles are owned by the Duchy of Cornwall (Prince Charles’ estate), and the Duchy has complete control over all of the islands except one. Tresco has been leased by a single family, the Dorrien-Smiths, since 1834 when their ancestor, wealthy banker Augustus Smith, first dropped anchor here and set himself up as Lord Proprietor of the islands.