Flat Holm

On a recent visit to Cardiff, I decided to treat Riona, Mark and JC (ahem, myself really) to a trip to Flat Holm.  We booked with Cardiff Cruises and hopped aboard in Cardiff Bay Saturday morning.

I had forgotten that Cardiff Bay is barraged, which meant we had to transit through the industrial sized lock gates to get to open water.  This was definitely an upscaled canal lock gate or two (or three in fact)  and fascinating to watch in action.

The 20 minute trip across the bay was smooth, and we enjoyed the views across to Penarth.  I made Riona promise never to buy a property on the cliff there - not that she's going to but sometimes you just have to impart that motherly advice.  The cliffs may look safe from the land, but from the sea they look quite vulnerable.

Flat Holm is ~8.3 km from the Bay and soon appeared: to its right is Steep Holm, 4.5 km beyond.  Flat Holm is in Wales and Steep Holm in England, the latter only accessible by boat from Weston-super-Mare.

We landed up the beach and had an interesting tour of the island from one of the rangers.

Flat Holm was probably first occupied by the Vikings, Holm being the Scandanivan word for 'small island'.  It was then variously used by hermits, monks and other religious people escaping the hustle and bustle of the mainland.  

Its light house was built in 1736/7 by Trinity House.  This didn't seem to deter the smugglers who used the island during the 18th century, enjoying its closeness to the mainland but its lack of accessibility by customs and the police.  

In the early 19th century, John Ashley moved to the island and from there established the Bristol Channel Mission (now the Mission to Seafarers).  And at the end of the century a 22 year old Italian, Guglielmo Marconi, achieved the first over water radio transmission between Flat Holm and the nearest point of mainland Wales, Lavernock Point.  

The island's geographical position was not unnoticed by Lord Palmerston who, in 1869, built a series of Forts across the Severn Estuary, using both Flat and Steep Holm islands to build defences.  The guns sat in Moncrieff pits, being hosted up to fire and disappearing due to their mighty recoil.  The guns now lie around, too heavy to be repatriated to the mainland.

The island was used as a cholera outpost during an outbreak in 1893.  Nowadays the building is derelict and adorned with a somewhat gruesome doll.

The foghorn was established in 1906, but it's out of action now.

In World War II Flat Holm hosted more troops, search lights, guns and radar.  

Aside from the buildings, Flat Holm has the rare (to the UK) wild leek. 

It also hosts colonies of both herring and black backed gulls, numerous rabbits (hundreds from a quick poo count) and 7 Boreray sheep, an endangered breed of which there are only ~300 in the world.  There were 8 until last week when one died after a fall down a cliff.

Once our tour finished, we had a quick cuppa in the multi-functional pub/coffee/gift/museum shop (our ranger was also the barista) and waited on the beach for our boat to arrive.  

Returning through the docks was even more fun than the outward journey as the tide had fallen.  We were at low tide, 2 m above Ordnance Datum (Mean Sea Level) - high tide that day was 12 m above MSL so you can see how great the range is!  No wonder the lock gates are 16 m tall.  The height difference between us and the water in the Bay looked to be around 5 m and it was exciting to be in the lock (thankfully in our boat) rising as the water flooded in.

What a great explore :-)