Qualla: St Helen's, Isles of Scilly https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: St Helen's, Isles of Scilly https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly St Helen's, Isles of Scilly: Introduction https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly/ Photo credit Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0. Three pieces of human history cluster together on this 19-hectare uninhabited island, hidden in plain sight at the centre of the Scilly archipelago. On the slopes are four Bronze Age ring cairns. Halfway down sits a rectangular medieval church, built around the ruins of an 8th-century hermit's cell. Down on the flat behind the dunes stands a roofless rectangle of mortared rubble - the Pest House, built in 1764 to quarantine sailors with plague before they could carry it ashore to England. Each layer is separated by a thousand years or more, and you can walk between them in a quarter of an hour.

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Image: Jonathan Billinger | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly-wp/gbgs-st-helens-isles-of-scilly-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full St Helen's, Isles of Scilly: Saint Lide's Hill https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly/ Photo credit Tom Corser, CC BY-SA 2.0 uk. Early medieval Christianity arrived in the Scillies as it arrived in much of western Britain: through hermits. The southern slope of St Helen's holds the remains of one of the earliest Christian sites in the islands, the hermitage believed to be St Elidius's, after the 8th-centur...

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Image: Tom Corser | CC BY-SA 2.0 uk

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly-wp/gbgs-st-helens-isles-of-scilly-saint-lides-hill.mp3 0:06 2 full St Helen's, Isles of Scilly: St Helen's Pool https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly/ Photo credit Daniel Bagshaw, CC BY-SA 2.5. Just off the south side of the island lies a stretch of sheltered water known as St Helen's Pool. In medieval times, when the modern town of Hugh Town on St Mary's did not yet exist, this was effectively the main harbour of the Scillies. Records suggest the monks of Tresco may ha...

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Image: Daniel Bagshaw | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly-wp/gbgs-st-helens-isles-of-scilly-st-helens-pool.mp3 0:06 3 full St Helen's, Isles of Scilly: The Pest House https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly/ Photo credit David Lally, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1754, an Act of Parliament decreed that any ship carrying plague north of Cape Finisterre while heading for England had to anchor off St Helen's Pool. Ten years later, in 1764, the islands' Council built a small isolation hospital on the flat sandy ground behind the dunes - a ...

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Image: David Lally | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly-wp/gbgs-st-helens-isles-of-scilly-the-pest-house.mp3 0:06 4 full St Helen's, Isles of Scilly: Three Wrecks of Cairns and Birds https://qualla.com/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly/ Photo credit Andrew Abbott, CC BY-SA 2.0. Walk the hill itself and you find an even older layer. Four Bronze Age ring cairns sit on the gentle north-west slope - small circles of upright stones, four to six metres in diameter, the kind of monument the Bronze Age people of Scilly raised by the hundreds. The total survivin...

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Image: Andrew Abbott | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/st-helen-s-isles-of-scilly-wp/gbgs-st-helens-isles-of-scilly-three-wrecks-of-cairns-and-birds.mp3 0:06 5 full