Beachcombing

How wrecking became a fine art on the dangerously rocky Isles of Scilly

- Sam Llewellyn

Scilly is a dangerously rocky spot, as you’ll have noticed if you have sailed there. Among the islands beachcombing, known locally as wrecking, has over the years become a fine art. Scilly wrecking is not the wicked old lantern-on-a-cows horns murder-by-drowning.

Indeed, it has even received Divine approval: one of its patron saints, St Warna, was famous for raising gales to relieve famine and shortage with the proceeds of wrecks.

And a couple of hundred years ago a parson in the Tresco church, hearing news of a wreck in the course of his sermon, leaped from the pulpit, tearing off his surplice and cassock, and cried ‘Come, come, let’s all start fair!’ before joining the rush for the beach.

The pilot gigs of Scilly, nowadays raced furiously up and down south-west Britain, combined saving life with wrecking, notably assisting the Minnehaha, carrying a cargo of (among other things) harmoniums and French perfume, wrecked off the back of Bryher. If the brave lifesavers emitted during the following weeks a niff more like Chanel No5 than the usual pot bait, and weird discords seeped under cottage front doors, well, it was a by-product of saving life at sea.