TOP 10 GETAWAY ISLANDS

Escape life's everyday stresses and experience incredible wildlife on these invigorating island escapes

- Dixe Wills

Burgh Island, Devon

It's no small thing to be the island that not only inspired one of the bestselling novels of all time, but to be the place where it was written, too.

Agatha Christie loved staying at Burgh Island Hotel (burghisland.com), where a beach house was built especially for her as a writing retreat. It was there that the ‘Queen of Crime’ wrote the 100-million-plus-seller And Then There Were None, published in 1939 and set on an island very much like Burgh. For good measure she also penned the Hercule Poirot mystery Evil Under the Sun on Burgh, and made another killing. Christie's beach house is part of the Art Deco hotel and, if money is no object, you can stay there yourself.

The 10.5-hectare tidal island, just off Bigbury-on-Sea on the south Devon coast, has another claim to fame. When the sea rolls in and cuts it off from the mainland, visitors can ride there and back on a hydraulic sea-tractor, a unique metal beast specially built in 1969 at huge expense. Affectionately known as Trundle, it runs on demand from about 8am to late (fare £2 single).

Once on Burgh, you can roam the grassy slopes of the island's one hill to the ancient Huer’s Hut, from where a lookout - or huer - would watch for the silver shoals of pilchards offshore. Upon spotting a shoal, they would shout “Hevva, Hevva!” (“Here they are!”) to alert local fishermen, then use hand signals or wave branches to direct boats to the catch. And do visit Burgh’s pub, the 14th-century Pilchard Inn which oozes character and is said to be haunted by a truculent ghost called Tom.

Round Island, Poole, Dorset