St Mary's
St Mary's is the principal church of St Mary's, the largest of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago lying approximately 28 miles south-west of Land's End in Cornwall. The Church of St Mary the Virgin sits at the heart of Hugh Town, the only town of any size in the islands, and serves as the spiritual and community anchor of the island community. It is a working Anglican parish church of considerable antiquity, and while it does not rank among England's grandest ecclesiastical buildings, its setting, character, and connection to the unique life of this remote island group give it a quiet but genuine importance. The church draws visitors not only for worship but as a place of reflection and as a window into the particular history and culture of a community that has lived at the edge of the Atlantic for centuries.
The origins of Christian worship on St Mary's reach back into the early medieval period, when Celtic missionaries travelled the sea-lanes between Ireland, Wales, and Brittany, leaving small oratories and chapels on many of the islands they passed through. The present building, however, is largely the product of later centuries of rebuilding and restoration. The Church of St Mary the Virgin was substantially reconstructed during the nineteenth century, a period when many Cornish and island churches were extensively overhauled in line with Victorian Gothic Revival sensibilities. The churchyard, which surrounds the building, contains memorials that reflect the maritime nature of island life, including graves of sailors and fishermen who perished in the notoriously difficult waters around Scilly, waters that claimed an enormous number of vessels over the centuries, most catastrophically in the naval disaster of 1707 when Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's fleet foundered on the Western Rocks with the loss of nearly two thousand lives.
Inside, the church has the modest, well-worn character typical of a rural English parish that has remained genuinely in use rather than becoming a museum piece. The stone walls retain an atmosphere of coolness even in summer, and light filters through windows that look out over the town and towards the harbour. The furnishings are simple, in keeping with the unpretentious character of island life, and there is a sense throughout of a congregation that has weathered hardship together across many generations — families whose surnames recur repeatedly in the island records and on the churchyard stones. The acoustic quality of the interior lends itself well to the choral and community singing that has long been a part of island tradition.
Hugh Town itself, which surrounds the church, is a compact settlement of granite cottages, guesthouses, shops, and the Isles of Scilly's administrative offices, all clustered on a narrow isthmus between the Town Beach to the north and Porthcressa Beach to the south. The landscape of St Mary's is one of low, wind-shaped headlands, sheltered valleys full of sub-tropical flowering plants cultivated commercially since the nineteenth century, and small fields bounded by dense hedges of pittosporum and escallonia that protect against the Atlantic gales. From elevated points on the island, such as the ruins of Star Castle — a sixteenth-century Elizabethan fortress built in a star-shaped plan, now operating as a hotel — the views extend across the other inhabited islands of Tresco, Bryher, St Martin's, and St Agnes, separated by shimmering channels of turquoise and green water.
Reaching St Mary's requires either a helicopter or a ferry. The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company operates the Scillonian III passenger ferry from Penzance, a crossing of roughly two and three-quarter hours that can be lively in any kind of swell. Skybus, operated by the same company, offers flights from Land's End, Newquay, and Exeter airports, with the Land's End service taking only fifteen minutes. Visitors arrive at Hugh Town Quay, within easy walking distance of the church. The islands are at their most temperate and populated in spring and early summer, when the famous Scilly flowers — daffodils and narcissi in late winter, followed by a succession of other blooms — are at their best, and when migratory birds make the islands an internationally renowned destination for birdwatchers. The summer months bring more visitors but the islands never feel overwhelmed in the way that popular mainland destinations can.
A particularly moving aspect of visiting the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin is reading the epitaphs of those lost at sea. The Isles of Scilly sit at one of the busiest and most treacherous shipping crossings in the world, and the church has recorded the deaths of those drowned within its parish for centuries. There is also a strong tradition of the Gig races — competitive rowing in six-oared pilot gigs, the traditional vessels once used to race out to incoming ships to offer piloting services — and St Mary's is the hub of what has become a major international sport that retains deep roots in island identity. The World Pilot Gig Championship, held annually in Scilly, brings hundreds of crews from around the world to compete in waters the islanders have rowed for generations.