Lundy, Devon - aerial view inc South Lighthouse, pier - postcard

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Aerial View of the south bit of Lundy Island showing the South Lighthouse and the pier
• Publisher:  Landmark Trust, c.2000s
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Lundy is the largest island in the Bristol Channel, lying 12 miles (19 km) off the coast of Devon, England, approximately one third of the distance across the channel between England and Wales. Lundy gives its name to a British sea area and is one of the islands of England.^[3] Lundy has been designated by Natural England as National Character Area 159, one of England's natural regions.^[4]

As of 2007, there was a resident population of 28 people, including volunteers. These include a warden, ranger, island manager, and farmer, as well as bar and house-keeping staff. Most live in and around the village at the south of the island. Most visitors are day-trippers, although there are 23 holiday properties and a camp site for staying visitors, mostly also around the south of the island.

In a 2005 opinion poll of Radio Times readers, Lundy was named as Britain's tenth greatest natural wonder. The entire island has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest^[5] and it was England's first statutory Marine Nature Reserve, and the first Marine Conservation Zone,^[6] because of its unique flora and fauna.^[7] It is managed by the Landmark Trust on behalf of the National Trust.

The name Lundy is believed to come from the old Norse word for ""puffin island"" (Lundey), lundi being the Norse word for a puffin and ey, an island,^[8] although an alternative explanation has been suggested with Lund referring to a copse, or wooded area.^[9] According to genealogist Edward MacLysaght the surname Lundy is from Norman de la Lounde, a name recorded in medieval documents in counties Tipperary and Kilkenny in Ireland.^{[10][clarification needed]}

Lundy has evidence of visitation or occupation from the Neolithic period onward, with Mesolithic flintwork, Bronze Age burial mounds, four inscribed gravestones from the early medieval period,^[11][12] and an early medieval monastery (possibly dedicated to St Elen or St Helen).

Beacon Hill cemetery was excavated by Charles Thomas in 1969.^[13] The cemetery contains four inscribed stones, dated to the 5th or 6th century AD. The site was originally enclosed by a curvilinear bank and ditch, which is still visible in the south west corner. However, the other walls were moved when the Old Light was constructed in 1819. Early Christian enclosures of this type are known as lanns in Cornish. There are surviving examples in Luxulyan, in Cornwall; Mathry, Meidrim, and Clydau in Wales; and Stowford, Jacobstowe, Lydford, and Instow, in Devon.

Thomas proposed a five-stage sequence of site usage: (1) An area of round huts and fields. These huts may have fallen into disuse before the construction of the cemetery. (2) The construction of the focal grave, an 11 ft by 8 ft rectangular stone enclosure containing a single cist grave. The interior of the enclosure was filled with small granite pieces. Two more cist graves located to the west of the enclosure may also date from this time. (3) Perhaps 100 years later, the focal grave was opened and the infill removed. The body may have been moved to a church at this time. (4) & (5) Two further stages of cist grave construction around the focal grave.

23 cist graves were found during this excavation. Considering that the excavation only uncovered a small area of the cemetery, there may be as many as 100 graves.

Lundy was granted to the Knights Templar by Henry II in 1160. The Templars were a major international maritime force at this time, with interests in North Devon, and almost certainly an important port at Bideford or on the River Taw in Barnstaple. This was probably because of the increasing threat posed by the Norse sea raiders; however, it is unclear whether they ever took possession of the island. Ownership was disputed by the Marisco family who may have already been on the island during King Stephen's reign. The Mariscos were fined, and the island was cut off from necessary supplies.^[16] Evidence of the Templars' weak hold on the island came when King John, on his accession in 1199, confirmed the earlier grant.^[17]

In 1235 William de Marisco was implicated in the murder of Henry Clement, a messenger of Henry III.^[18] Three years later, an attempt was made to kill Henry III by a man who later confessed to being an agent of the Marisco family. William de Marisco fled to Lundy where he lived as a virtual king. He built a stronghold in the area now known as Bulls' Paradise with 9 feet (3 m) thick walls.^[17] In 1242, Henry III sent troops to the island. They scaled the island's cliff and captured William de Marisco and 16 of his ""subjects"". Henry III built the castle (sometimes referred to as the Marisco Castle) in an attempt to establish the rule of law on the island and its surrounding waters.^[19] At some point in the 13th century the monks of the Cistercian order at Cleeve Abbey held the rectory of the island.^[20]

Over the next few centuries, the island was hard to govern. Trouble followed as both English and foreign pirates and privateers – including other members of the Marisco family – took control of the island for short periods. Ships were forced to navigate close to Lundy because of the dangerous shingle banks in the fast flowing River Severn and Bristol Channel, with its tidal range of 27 feet (8.2 m),^[21][22] one of the greatest in the world.^[23][24] This made the island a profitable location from which to prey on passing Bristol-bound merchant ships bringing back valuable goods from overseas.^[25]

In 1627 Barbary Pirates from the Republic of Salé occupied Lundy for five years. The North African invaders, under the command of Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon, flew an Ottoman flag over the island. Some captured Europeans were held on Lundy before being sent to Algiers as slaves.^{[26][27][28][29]} From 1628 to 1634 the island was plagued by pirate ships of French, Basque, English, and Spanish origin. These incursions were eventually ended by Sir John Pennington, but in the 1660s and as late as the 1700s the island still fell prey to French privateers.^[30]

In the English Civil War, Thomas Bushell held Lundy for King Charles I, rebuilding Marisco Castle and garrisoning the island at his own expense. He was a friend of Francis Bacon, a strong supporter of the Royalist cause and an expert on mining and coining. It was the last Royalist territory held between the first and second civil wars. After receiving permission from Charles I, Bushell surrendered the island on 24 February 1647 to Richard Fiennes, representing General Fairfax.^[31] In 1656, the island was acquired by Lord Saye and Sele.^[32]

The late 18th and early 19th centuries were years of lawlessness on Lundy, particularly during the ownership of Thomas Benson, a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1747 and Sheriff of Devon, who notoriously used the island for housing convicts whom he was supposed to be deporting. Benson leased Lundy from its owner, Lord Gower, at a rent of £60 per annum and contracted with the Government to transport a shipload of convicts to Virginia, but diverted the ship to Lundy to use the convicts as his personal slaves. Later Benson was involved in an insurance swindle. He purchased and insured the ship Nightingale and loaded it with a valuable cargo of pewter and linen. Having cleared the port on the mainland, the ship put into Lundy, where the cargo was removed and stored in a cave built by the convicts, before setting sail again. Some days afterwards, when a homeward-bound vessel was sighted, the Nightingale was set on fire and scuttled. The crew were taken off the stricken ship by the other ship, which landed them safely at Clovelly.^[33]

Sir Aubrey Vere Hunt of Curraghchase purchased the island from John Cleveland in 1802 for £5,270. Sir Vere Hunt planted in the island a small, self-contained Irish colony with its own constitution and divorce laws, coinage and stamps. He failed in his attempt to sell the Island to the British Government as a base for troops, and his son Sir Aubrey Thomas de Vere also had great difficulty in securing any profit from the property. The tenants came from Sir Vere Hunt's Irish estate and they experienced agricultural difficulties while on the island. This led Sir Vere Hunt to seek someone who would take the island off his hands. In the 1820s John Benison agreed to purchase the Island for £4,500 but then refused to complete sale as he felt that Aubrey could not make out a good title in respect of the sale terms, namely that the Island was free from tithes and taxes.^[34]

William Hudson Heaven purchased Lundy in 1834, as a summer retreat and for the shooting, at a cost of 9,400 guineas (£9,870). He claimed it to be a ""free island"", and successfully resisted the jurisdiction of the mainland magistrates. Lundy was in consequence sometimes referred to as ""the kingdom of Heaven"". It belongs in fact to the county of Devon, and has always been part of the hundred of Braunton.^[32] Many of the buildings on the island today, including Saint Helena's Church, designed by the architect John Norton, and Millcombe House (originally known simply as The Villa), date from the Heaven period. The Georgian-style Villa was built in 1836.^[35] However, the expense of building the road from the beach (no financial assistance being provided by Trinity House, despite their regular use of the road following the construction of the lighthouses), the Villa and the general cost of running the island had a ruinous effect on the family's finances, which had been damaged by reduced profits from their sugar plantations in Jamaica.

In 1957 a message in a bottle from one of the seamen of the HMS Caledonia was washed ashore between Babbacombe and Peppercombe in Devon. The letter, dated 15 August 1843 read: ""Dear Brother, Please e God i be with y against Michaelmas. Prepare y search Lundy for y Jenny ivories. Adiue William, Odessa"". The bottle and letter are on display at the Portledge Hotel at Fairy Cross, in Devon, England. The Jenny was a three-masted schooner reputed to be carrying ivory and gold dust that was wrecked on Lundy (at a place thereafter called Jenny's Cove) on 20 February 1797. The ivory was apparently recovered some years later but the leather bags supposed to contain gold dust were never found.^[36][37]

William Heaven was succeeded by his son the Reverend Hudson Grosset Heaven who, thanks to a legacy from Sarah Langworthy (née Heaven), was able to fulfill his life's ambition of building a stone church on the island. St Helen's was completed in 1896, and stands today as a lasting memorial to the Heaven period. It has been designated by English Heritage a Grade II listed building.^[38] He is said to have been able to afford either a church or a new harbour. His choice of the church was not however in the best financial interests of the island. The unavailability of the money for re-establishing the family's financial soundness, coupled with disastrous investment and speculation in the early 20th century, caused severe financial hardship.^{[citation needed]}

Hudson Heaven died in 1916, and was succeeded by his nephew, Walter Charles Hudson Heaven.^[39] With the outbreak of World War I, matters deteriorated seriously, and in 1918 the family sold Lundy to Augustus Langham Christie. In 1924, the Christie family sold the island along with the mail contract and the MV Lerina to Martin Coles Harman, who proclaimed himself a king. Harman issued two coins of Half Puffin and One Puffin denominations in 1929, nominally equivalent to the British halfpenny and penny, resulting in his prosecution under the United Kingdom's Coinage Act of 1870. The House of Lords found him guilty in 1931, and he was fined £5 with fifteen guineas expenses. The coins were withdrawn and became collectors' items. In 1965 a ""fantasy"" restrike four-coin set, a few in gold, was issued to commemorate 40 years since Harman purchased the island.^[40] Harman's son, John Pennington Harman was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in Kohima, India in 1944. There is a memorial to him at the VC Quarry on Lundy. Martin Coles Harman died in 1954.

Residents did not pay taxes to the United Kingdom and had to pass through customs when they travelled to and from Lundy Island. Although the island was ruled as a virtual fiefdom, its owner never claimed to be independent of the United Kingdom, in contrast to later territorial ""micronations"".

Following the death of Harman's son Albion in 1968,^[41] Lundy was put up for sale in 1969. Jack Hayward, a British millionaire, purchased the island for £150,000 and gave it to the National Trust,^[40] who leased it to the Landmark Trust. The Landmark Trust has managed the island since then, deriving its income from arranging day trips, letting out holiday cottages and from donations.

The island is visited by over 20,000 day-trippers a year, but during September 2007 had to be closed for several weeks owing to an outbreak of Norovirus.^[42]

A naval footnote in the history of Lundy was the wreck of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Montagu. Steaming in heavy fog, she ran hard aground near Shutter Rock on the island's southwest corner at about 2:00 a.m. on 30 May 1906.^[43] Thinking they were aground at Hartland Point on the English mainland, a landing party went ashore for help, only finding out where they were after encountering the lighthouse keeper at the island's north light.

Strenuous efforts by the Royal Navy to salvage the badly damaged battleship during the summer of 1906 failed, and in 1907 it was decided to give up and sell her for scrap. Montagu was scrapped at the scene over the next fifteen years. Diving clubs still visit the site, where armour plate and live 12-inch (305-millimetre) shells remain on the seabed.

During World War II two German Heinkel He 111 bombers crash landed on the island in 1941. The first was on 3 March, when all the crew survived and were taken prisoner. The second was on 1 April when the pilot was killed and the other crew members were taken prisoner.^[44] The plane had bombed a British ship and one engine was damaged by anti aircraft fire, forcing it to crash land. A few remains can be found on the crash site. Reportedly to avoid reprisals the crew concocted a story that they were on a reconnaissance mission.^[45]

The island of Lundy is 3 miles (5 km) long from north to south by about 0.75 miles (1.2 km) wide, with an area of 1,099 acres (445 hectares).^[1][2] The highest point on Lundy is at 142 metres (466 ft). A few metres off the northeastern coast is Seal's Rock which is so called after the seals which rest on and inhabit the islet.^[46][47] It is less than 50 metres (55 yd) wide.^[47] Near the jetty is a small pocket beach.

type=printed

city/ region=lundy

period=post-war (1945-present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=continental/ modern (150x100 mm)