UK's tiny islands: 10 hidden gems to discover

Small islands in the UK can offer a holiday adventure or a wildlife treat. Some you can walk to, some are a boat ride away. Here we reveal 10 to add to your travel wishlist

Easdale, off Seil Island, Argyll & Bute

Size: 0.08sq miles
In its mid-19th century heyday, this apparently inconsequential island in the Sound of Lorn had a population of around 450 and was exporting up to 19m roofing slates every year, laying the basis for the boast that Easdale's was "the slate that roofed the world".

Today, the first thing you notice as you get off the little boat that carries you over in a blink from Ellenabeich is wheelbarrows. On a small patch of grass by the harbour a battalion of them lie upside down. With no roads and no cars, anything that needs ferrying about on the grassy footpaths is taken in a wheelbarrow, so this is the island's equivalent of a car park.

Whitewashed one-storey cottages of far greater vintage arrange themselves in rather haphazard lines around the inlet that serves as a harbour. Towards the middle of the isle stands a flat-topped hillock, its flanks torn off to reveal dark cliffs. Meanwhile, a wander around the outside of the island, over its millions of shards of slate, takes in all half dozen or so flooded quarries. These have an otherworldly feel to them, as if formed by a giant poking his rough fingers deep into the island from above in a misguided mission to supply its inhabitants with swimming pools.

The sea has turned the quarries into lagoons, while long grasses, wild fuchsia and blackthorn have covered what the sea cannot penetrate. What little fame Easdale has today is down to its hosting of the World Stone Skimming Championships (stoneskimming.com). The contest, which is open to all comers, takes place in one of the flooded quarries every September. Although the event is intended first and foremost to be fun – with a big knees-up in the community centre the night before – there are proper rules and regulations and referees and everything, with a trophy for the winner of each category. If you fancy taking one home yourself, you should know that the victor in the men's competition invariably gets his smooth slate projectile to hit the back wall of the quarry, a throw of some 200ft, while the female champion usually skims her stone just over half that distance.

• Timetables at easdale.org/hall/timetable.htm

Peel Island, Coniston Water, Cumbria

Size: 0.001sq miles
Although you might never have visited Peel Island, there's a chance your imagination may already have taken you there. If you have read Arthur Ransome's description of Wild Cat Island – with its one pine standing proud of rowans, oaks and beech trees; its rocky shore repelling landings to all vessels whose captains did not know the secret of the island's one safe passage; and its pleasant glades where picnics could be enjoyed and stratagems hatched – you have seen Peel island. As a child, Ransome came to Coniston every year with his family, and his father Cyril would often row them across to Peel Island for a picnic, no doubt sowing the seed for his children's story Swallows and Amazons.

The island is still popular with children, though they're more likely to come over in organised groups learning how to handle kayaks or canoes than on their own in a dinghy. Snuggled down beneath the thickly wooded southern shores of Coniston Water, the isle hides itself from prying eyes beneath its own cloak of trees and thus is a wonderful place to become a child again and imagine yourself into a daring escapade.
• Hire a boat or canoe at Coniston Boating Centre (ntlakesoutdoors.org.uk/things-to-do/visit-peel-island)

Samson, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall

Size: 0.15sq miles
There's something grippingly Caribbean about leaping off the front of a boat into bright sparkly water and splashing up on to a crisp white beach to be greeted by the purple heads of pyramidal orchids and the octopus tentacles of sea spurge.

Uninhabited since 1855, Samson has taken on the look of an island uniquely blessed, with its sinuous profile and lush undergrowth. Even its generous scattering of ruined houses looks romantic rather than sinister.

Arguably the most unlikely event ever to take place on Samson occurred in 1965 when prime minister Harold Wilson refused to cut short his annual summer holiday to attend to potential crises brewing in Westminster. His solution was to conduct a press conference on the beach at East Porth (pictured). Photos of the event show Wilson in sandals, a short-sleeved shirt, and really quite short shorts while the gentlemen of the press (and they are all men) cluster around in ill-fitting suits and, bizarrely, overcoats.

The island is barely ever that busy nowadays, aside from the hustle and bustle of the 2,000 seabirds who nest here. They include a common tern colony on North Hill and an internationally important lesser black-backed gull colony on South Hill.
• For boat trips see bryherboats.co.uk

Worm's Head, near Rhossili, Gower Peninsula

Size: 0.05sq miles
A mile-long rollercoaster jutting out into the Bristol Channel, this is not only one of the most exhilarating islands to visit but also one of Britain's most visually impressive chunks of landscape. The National Trust must hug themselves every time they remember it's in their care. The gentle walk from the village of Rhossili along the coast to the Old Coastguard Lookout offers views to be savoured and stored away for later use when your soul needs refreshing.

There's no track across the wide curved causeway, so visitors are faced with a choice of routes over the rocks. At first there are mussels underfoot, then a variety of smaller crustaceans, then finally a whole new landscape complete with miniature rift valleys and lochs to be negotiated. The whole thing takes about 15 minutes if you don't dawdle or spend too long looking for grey seals.

Holm of Papay, Orkneys

Size: 0.09sq miles
Around 5,000 years ago, the community living at the Knap of Howar on Papa Westray crossed over to the Holm of Papay to build a burial cairn in which to lay their loved ones to rest. A visit to the fruit of their labours is not something you are likely to forget in a hurry.

While neolithic Skara Brae and Maes Howe on mainland Orkney hoover up the publicity, this astonishingly well-preserved burial chamber is all but unknown. This means, of course, that there's every chance you'll have the place to yourself. Indeed, if you don't have the whole island to yourself (not counting the birds and the flock of sheep that grazes there) you're entitled to feel rather unlucky, for there's no ferry service to the Holm of Papay. The easiest way to get there is to ask a local fisherman if he can take you over from Papa Westray.

Monkey Island, River Thames, near Bray, Berkshire

Size: 0.007sq miles
Crossing via the graceful arc of the narrow footbridge – built in 1949 so that the then owner's pregnant wife could reach the island safely – today's visitor is met by a prospect of calm, rather formalised serenity. Beyond the effusive welcome of the enormous weeping willow, beyond the well-tended lawns grazed by peacocks and Canada geese, beyond the gardeners patiently watering the ornamental shrubberies, stand two equally effulgent but very different Palladian buildings, each in their own space and each exuding a sense of timeless solidity. If Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, who bought the island in 1738, were to return today he would doubtless recognise the scene, though he might be surprised that his small private buildings have grown into a sizable hotel.

Back then he employed a pair of architects to create two decadent fantasies – a fishing lodge and a fishing temple. The Lodge – now known as the Pavilion – cleverly used wooden blocks cut to resemble stone. It's still fooling the eye today. It had just two rooms: a kitchen and a parlour, which became known as the Monkey Room after Spencer commissioned French artist Andien de Clermont to paint the walls and ceiling with depictions of our primate friends clothed as humans and fishing, shooting, hunting, smoking, optimistically hurling tiny harpoons at vast whales, and generally living the life of the country gentleman in the reign of George III.
• monkeyisland.co.uk

Inner Farne, Northumberland

Size: 0.03sq miles
Few things look more vulnerable than a low-lying island in the midst of the waves, and many of the 28 Farne islands look ripe for disappearance at the slightest rise in global sea levels. The islands are in two clusters separated by Staple Sound. The many boats that ply the waves more often than not pass through a guard of honour composed of grey seals. Around 6,000 of these amiable souls live around the islands, forming one of Europe's most important colonies.

However, it is not so much the seals that draw visitors to these islands as the birds. Inner Farne glories in thousands of them, including puffins, guillemots, shags, cormorants, razorbills, eiders, Sandwich terns, common terns and roseate terns. Those incomers who forgot their hats or who did not know to bring one, soon create a makeshift one with their arms as they scurry to all that remains of St Mary's chapel, a little shelter that now acts as the National Trust visitor centre. On their way they pass through a busy Arctic tern nesting area and the birds, fearful for the safety of their eggs or young, divebomb the heads of interlopers.
• The National Trust runs boat trips from Seahouses (nationaltrust.org.uk/farne-islands)

Isle of May, Firth of Forth

Size: 0.2sq miles
May was home to Scotland's first manned "light beacon" way back in 1636 – a beautiful three-storey square tower with a beacon on top fired by coal lifted by a pulley from a shed below. The ground floor is still here thanks to Sir Walter Scott who, when visiting the island, suggested that the newly obsolete structure should not be pulled down as was planned but "ruined à la picturesque". From a distance, the Main Light, built by Robert Stevenson (Robert Louis' grandfather) in 1816 to replace the light beacon looks very like a church. Its square tower and light resembling a short spire is fine enough to grace any village in the land. It was apparently meant to resemble a castle and closer inspection does indeed reveal castellated walls, giving it the look of a rather underwhelming fort. The last keepers left in 1989 when the light was automated, and their huge sunken walled garden is now sadly overgrown.
• For trips see isleofmayferry.com

Threave Island, near Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Size: 0.03sq miles
Threave Island introduced to the historical stage a character so morosely inimical there could be only one possible name for him: Archibald the Grim. Archibald was granted the Lordship of Galloway and immediately set to work building a castle. He chose an island on the river Dee which, so legend decrees, had already had a fortified home on it for several centuries.

Reaching the island today involves a walk for the better part of a mile down a path that zigzags along the edges of fields. On reaching the Dee, visitors ring a ship's bell to alert a boatman and take what may well be the briefest ferry journey to any tiny island in Britain. While by far the greater part of the isle is given over to a marshy wilderness kept as a wildlife sanctuary (lovers of otters and ospreys should keep their eyes especially peeled), the area around the castle is a beautifully maintained lawn that would not look out of place on the Old Course at St Andrews.

Even from a distance the ruins look forbidding, so what feelings it engendered in Archibald's enemies during the castle's pomp can only be guessed at.

Ynys Llanddwyn, Newborough Bay, Anglesey

Size: 0.09sq miles
Ynys Llanddwyn is very nearly not an island at all. Only at particularly high tides does the sea reach far enough up the sandy beach of Llanddwyn Bay to cut it adrift from Newborough Forest.

The isle is very much a creature of the sea. It was created in the absurdly ancient Precambrian era by small volcanic eruptions. When the molten lava hit the cold seawater above, it formed a small blob, which dropped onto other small blobs that had already cooled. The resulting oddly shaped "pillow lavas" give Ynys Llanddwyn the look of a billowing sheet. Further outcrops appear to have burst out of the island's grassy skin, hurling themselves into the sea as if they knew the fate that's coming to us all.

A walk around the island's long finger of land is a gentle one, conducive to a quiet stroll hand-in-hand. Aside from the odd glimpse of a Soay sheep or a wild pony, the half of the island nearest the shore offers no sign that it had been inhabited for the best part of 1,500 years.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2013/may/03/uk-tiny-islands-10-hidden-gems