Qualla: Herm

Herm: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dickelbers, CC BY-SA 3.0. A Prussian prince looked at Herm in the early twentieth century and decided what this small Channel Island really lacked was wallabies. Prince Blucher, descended from the Field Marshal whose late-arriving Prussians helped save Wellington at Waterloo, brought them in and turned them loose. The wallabies are mostly gone now. Almost everything else on Herm is older than they were and will outlast their absence. It is the smallest publicly-accessible Channel Island, a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, with a population of about 65 and a rule against motor vehicles that extends even to bicycles. The only way around is your feet.

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Image: Dickelbers | CC BY-SA 3.0

Herm: Crossing Over

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Man vyi, Public domain. The Trident Ferry from Saint Peter Port on Guernsey is the only way in. The crossing takes twenty minutes. In summer there are eight sailings a day; in November to March, often only one. The boat takes seventy passengers and runs to a tide-dependent schedule that means departing ...

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Image: Man vyi | Public domain

Herm: Saint Tugual and the Cows

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Man vyi, Public domain. The eleventh-century chapel of Saint Tugual sits in the middle of the island, named for a Breton saint who died in 564 AD. Inside, the stained glass windows tell strangely local stories: Noah's Ark, Guernsey cows, Jesus speaking with fishermen on Herm's own harbor. The chapel is ...

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Image: User:Man vyi | Public domain

Herm: Compton Mackenzie's Refuge

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Erik1980, CC BY-SA 3.0. The novelist Compton Mackenzie, best known for Whisky Galore, lived on Herm for a time in the 1920s after the First World War. He was looking for the same thing many of his guests at the White House were looking for, then and now: somewhere quiet enough to think. The hotel is sti...

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Image: Erik1980 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Herm: What Little Happens

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit edited by M.Minderhoud, Public domain. An island guide to Herm warns visitors that little has ever happened here, even during the wartime occupation. The Germans took the Channel Islands in June 1940 and held them until May 1945, but Herm was a sideshow even within that sideshow. The garrison was small. The disruption...

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Image: edited by M.Minderhoud | Public domain