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Lundy is an English island in the Bristol Channel. It forms part of the district of Torridge in the county of Devon.
About long and wide, Lundy has had a long and turbulent history, frequently changing hands between the British crown and various usurpers. In the 1920s, the island's owner, Martin Harman, tried to issue his own coinage and was fined. In 1941, two German Heinkel He 111 bombers crash landed on the island, and their crews were captured.
In 1969, Lundy was purchased by British millionaire Jack Hayward, who donated it to the National Trust. It is now managed by the Landmark Trust, a conservation charity that derives its income from day trips and holiday lettings, most visitors arriving by boat from Bideford or Ilfracombe. A local tourist curiosity is the special "Puffin" postage stamp, a category known by philatelists as "local carriage labels", a collectors' item.
As a steep, rocky island, often shrouded by fog, Lundy has been the scene of many shipwrecks, and the remains of its old lighthouse installations are of both historic and scientific interest. Its present-day lighthouses, one of which is solar-powered, are fully automated. Lundy has a rich bird life, as it lies on major migration routes, and attracts many vagrant as well as indigenous species. It also boasts a variety of marine habitats, with rare seaweeds, sponges and corals. In 2010, the island became Britain's first Marine Conservation Zone.
In a 2005 opinion poll of Radio Times readers, Lundy was named as Britain's tenth greatest natural wonder. The island has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and it was England's first statutory Marine Nature reserve, and the first Marine Conservation Zone, because of its unique flora and fauna. It is managed by the Landmark Trust on behalf of the National Trust.
Lundy is known in Welsh language as Ynys Wair, 'Gwair's Island', in reference to an alternative name for the wizard Gwydion.
Thomas proposed the following sequence of site usage:
Twenty-three 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.
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"
/ref> but by 1322 it was in the possession of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster and was among the large number of lands seized by Edward II following Lancaster'
/ref> At some point in the 13th century the monks of the Cistercian order at Cleeve Abbey in Somerset held the rectory of the island.
In 1627, a group known as the Salé Rovers, from the Republic of Salé (now Salé in Morocco) occupied Lundy for five years. These Barbary pirates, under the command of a Netherlands renegade named Jan Janszoon, flew a Moorish flag over the island. Slaving raids were made embarking from Lundy by the Barbary Pirates, and captured Europeans were held on Lundy before being sent to Salé and Algiers to be sold as slave to slavery on the Barbary coast.
From 1628 to 1634, in addition to the Barbary Pirates, the island was plagued by privateers of French, Basque, English and Spanish origin targeting the lucrative shipping routes passing through the Bristol Channel. These incursions were eventually ended by John Penington, but in the 1660s and as late as the 1700s the island still fell prey to French privateers.
Vere Hunt, a rather eccentric Irish politician and landowner, and unsuccessful man of business, purchased the island from John Cleveland in 1802 for £5,270. Hunt planted in the island a small, self-contained Irish colony with its own constitution and divorce laws, coinage, and stamps. The tenants came from Hunt's Irish estate and they experienced agricultural difficulties while on the island. This led Hunt to seek someone who would take the island off his hands, failing in his attempt to sell the island to the British government as a base for troops.
After the 1st Baronet's death his son, Sir Aubrey (Hunt) de Vere, 2nd Baronet, also had great difficulty in securing any profit from the property. In the 1820s, John Benison agreed to purchase the island for £4,500 but then refused to complete the sale, as he felt that de Vere could not make out a good title in respect of the sale terms, namely that the island was free from tithes and taxes.
William Hudson Heaven purchased Lundy in 1834, as a summer retreat and for hunting, 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 belonged in law to the county of Devon, and had long been part of the hundred of Braunton. Many of the buildings on the island, including St. Helen'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. However, the expense of building the road from the beach (no financial assistance being provided by Trinity House, despite their frequent use of the road following the construction of the lighthouses), maintaining the villa, and the general cost of running the island had a ruinous effect on the family's finances, which had been diminished by reduced profits from their sugar plantations, rum production, and livestock rearing in Jamaica.
In 1957, a message in a bottle from one of the seamen of 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. was a three-masted full-rigged ship reputed to be carrying ivory and gold dust that was wrecked on Lundy on 20 January 1797 at a place thereafter called Jenny's Cove. Some ivory was apparently recovered some years later but the leather bags supposed to contain gold dust were never found.
Hudson Heaven died in 1916, and was succeeded by his nephew, Walter Charles Hudson Heaven. With the outbreak of the First World War, 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 Merchant vessel Lerina to the businessman Martin Coles Harman. 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. His case was heard by Devon magistrates in April 1930, and he was fined £5 and ordered to pay £15 15 shillings (£15.75 in Decimal day) costs. He appealed to the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in 1931, but the appeal was dismissed. 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. Harman's son, John Pennington Harman was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross during the Battle of 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 "".
Following the death of Harman's son Albion in 1968,"Island owner dies after air lift" (source unknown). 24 June 1968 Lundy was put up for sale in 1969. Jack Hayward, a British millionaire, purchased the island for £150,000 (£ today) and gave it to the National Trust, who leased it to the Landmark Trust. The Trust has managed the island since then, deriving its income from arranging day trips, letting out holiday cottages and from donations. In May 2015 a sculpture by Antony Gormley was erected on Lundy. It is one of five life-sized sculptures, Land, placed near the centre and at four compass points of the UK in a commission by the Landmark Trust, to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The others are at Lowsonford (Warwickshire), Saddell Bay (Scotland), the Martello Tower (Aldeburgh, Suffolk), and Clavell Tower (Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset).
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.
An inaugural Lundy Island half-marathon took place on 8 July 2018 with 267 competitors.
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 plating remains among the rocks and kelp.
The second was on 1 April when the pilot was killed and the other crew members were taken prisoner. (1995). 9780952560203, Mary Gade. ISBN 9780952560203 This plane had bombed a British ship and one engine was damaged by anti aircraft fire, forcing it to crash land. Most of the metal was salvaged, although a few remains can be found at the crash site to date. Reportedly, to avoid reprisals, the crew concocted the story that they were on a reconnaissance mission.
Other areas are either a dry heath/acidic grassland mosaic, characterised by heaths and western gorse ( Ulex gallii), or semi-improved acidic grassland in which Yorkshire fog ( Holcus lanatus) is abundant. Tussocky (Thrift) (Holcus/Armeria) communities occur mainly on the western side, and some patches of bracken ( Pteridium aquilinum) on the eastern side.
There is one endemic plant species, the Lundy cabbage (Coincya wrightii), a species of primitive brassica.
By the 1980s, the eastern side of the island had become overgrown by ( Rhododendron ponticum) which had spread from a few specimens planted in the garden of Millcombe House in Victorian times, but in recent years significant efforts have been made to eradicate this non-native plant.
As an isolated island on major migration routes, Lundy has a rich bird life and is a popular site for birdwatching. Large numbers of black-legged kittiwake ( Rissa tridactyla) nest on the cliffs, as do razorbill ( Alca torda), common guillemot ( Uria aalge), European herring gull ( Larus argentatus), lesser black-backed gull ( Larus fuscus), northern fulmar ( Fulmarus glacialis), European shag ( Phalacrocorax aristotelis), Eurasian oystercatcher ( Haematopus ostralegus), Eurasian skylark ( Alauda arvensis), meadow pipit ( Anthus pratensis), common blackbird ( Turdus merula), European robin ( Erithacus rubecula), and linnet ( Carduelis cannabina). There are also smaller populations of peregrine falcon ( Falco peregrinus) and common raven ( Corvus corax).
Lundy has attracted many vagrant birds, in particular species from North America. As of 2007, the island's bird list totals 317 species. (2025). 9780954008871, Devon Bird Watching & Preservation Society / Lundy Field Society. ISBN 9780954008871 This has included the following species, each of which represents the sole British record: Ancient murrelet, eastern phoebe, and eastern towhee. Records of bimaculated lark, American robin, and common yellowthroat were also firsts for Britain (American robin has also occurred two further times on Lundy). in 1987 and 1997 were Britain's second and fourth records, a Rüppell's warbler in 1979 was Britain's second, an eastern Bonelli's warbler in 2004 was Britain's fourth, and a black-faced bunting in 2001 Britain's third.
Other British Birds rarities that have been sighted (single records unless otherwise indicated) are: little bittern; gyrfalcon (3 records); little crake and Baillon's crakes; collared pratincole; semipalmated (5 records), least sandpiper (2 records), white-rumped, and Baird's (2 records) sandpipers; Wilson's phalarope; laughing gull; bridled tern; Pallas's sandgrouse; great spotted, black-billed, and yellow-billed (3 records) cuckoos; European roller; olive-backed pipit; citrine wagtail; Alpine accentor; thrush nightingale; red-flanked bluetail; western black-eared (2 records) and desert wheatear wheatears; White's, Swainson's (3 records), and grey-cheeked (2 records) thrushes; Sardinian (2 records), Arctic warbler (3 records), Radde's, and western Bonelli's warblers; Isabelline and lesser grey shrikes; red-eyed vireo (7 records); two-barred crossbill; yellow-rumped and blackpoll warblers; yellow-breasted (2 records) and black-headed buntings (3 records); rose-breasted grosbeak (2 records); bobolink; and Baltimore oriole (2 records).
Other mammals which have made the island their home include the grey seal ( Halichoerus grypus) and the Eurasian pygmy shrew ( Sorex minutus). Until their elimination in 2006, in order to protect the nesting seabirds, Lundy was one of the few places in the UK where the black rat ( Rattus rattus) could be found regularly.
There is an outstanding variety of marine habitats and wildlife, and a large number of rare and unusual species in the waters around Lundy, including some species of seaweed, Sponge, sea fans, and Coral.
In 2003, the first statutory No Take Zone (NTZ) for marine nature conservation in the UK was set up in the waters to the east of Lundy island. In 2008, this was declared as having been successful in several ways including the increasing size and number of Homarus gammarus within the reserve, and potential benefits for other marine wildlife. However, the no take zone has received a mixed reaction from local fishermen.
On 12 January 2010 the island became Britain's first Marine Conservation Zone designated under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, designed to help to preserve important habitats and species.
Three species of are regularly seen from the island; them being the bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatrus), common dolphin ( Delphinus delphis), and harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena). Other cetacean species that are sighted from Lundy, albeit more rarely, are the minke whale ( Balaenoptera acutorostrata), Risso's dolphin ( Grampus griseus), and long-finned pilot whale ( Globicephala melas). ( Cetorhinus maximus), ocean sunfish ( Mola mola), and leatherback sea turtles ( Dermochelys coriacea) are also seen around Lundy, especially off the more sheltered eastern coast and only during the warmer months. Furthermore, there is a grey seal ( Halichoerus grypus) colony consisting of roughly 60 animals that live around the island.
In 2013, the island became a separate Church of England ecclesiastical parish.
On 1 November 1929, he decided to offset the expense by issuing two postage stamps ( puffin in pink and 1 puffin in blue). One puffin is equivalent to one English penny. The printing of Puffin stamps continues to this day and they are available at face value from the Lundy Post Office. One used to have to stick Lundy stamps on the back of the envelope; but from 1962 Royal Mail allowed their use on the front of the envelope, but placed on the left side, with the right side reserved for the Royal Mail postage stamp or stamps. Lundy stamps are cancelled by a circular Lundy hand stamp. In 1974, the face value of the Lundy Island stamps was increased to include Royal Mail charges in addition to the charge for transporting mail to the mainland and so from that year it has not been necessary to affix a separate Royal Mail postage stamp.
Lundy stamps are a type of postage stamp known to philatelists as "local carriage labels" or "local stamps". Issues of increasing value were made over the years, including air mail, featuring a variety of subjects. The market value of the early issues has risen substantially over the years. For the many thousands of annual visitors Lundy stamps have become part of the collection of the many British Local Posts collectors. The first catalogues of these stamps included Gerald Rosen's 1970 Catalogue of British Local Stamps. Later specialist catalogues include Stamps of Lundy Island by Stanley Newman, first published in 1984, Phillips Modern British Locals CD Catalogue, published since 2003, and Labbe's Specialised Guide to Lundy Island Stamps, published since 2005 and now in its 11th Edition. Labbe's Guide is considered the gold standard of Lundy catalogues owing to its extensive approach to varieties, errors, specialised items, and "fantasy" issues.
There is a comprehensive collection of these stamps in the Chinchen Collection, donated by Barry Chinchen to the British Library Philatelic Collections in 1977 and now held by the British Library. This is also the home of the Landmark Trust Lundy Island Philatelic Archive which includes artwork, texts and essays as well as postmarking devices and issued stamps. Philatelic Research at the British Library by David Beech
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