Gugh ( GHEW; Cornish: Keow, lit. 'hedge banks') could be described as the sixth inhabited island of the Isles of Scilly, but is usually included with St Agnes with which it is joined by a sandy tombolo known as "The Bar" when exposed at low tide. The island is only about 1 km (0.62 mi) long and about 0.5 km (0.31 mi) wide, with the highest point, Kittern Hill, at 34 m (112 ft). The geology consists of Hercynian granite with shallow podzolic soils on the higher ground and deeper sandy soils on the lower ground. The former Gugh farm is just north of the neck across the middle of the island between the two hills. The two houses were designed and built in the 1920s by Charles Hamlet Cooper. The island lies within the Isles of Scilly Heritage Coast, is in the Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is managed by the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust. Vegetation cover is mainly wind-pruned heath or dense bracken and bramble with a small area of coastal grassland formed over blown sand which has accumulated near the bar. In 2013, the Isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project was set up by a number of organisations including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust. The five-year project aimed to keep the islands of St Agnes and Gugh free of the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), in order to assist the survival of breeding sea birds. A programme of habitat restoration began in January 2016 with the removal of the invasive Pittosporum (Crassifolium species).
History
The earliest signs of occupation on Gugh are two groups each, of entrance graves and Bronze Age cairns. Entrance graves are either burial or ritual monuments and cairns are burial mounds. A lack of finds, most likely because of acid soils destroying any evidence, makes the dating of the monuments difficult, but a few pottery remains date them to late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. On Kittern Hill there are five entrance graves, one of which (Obadiah's Barrow) was excavated in 1901, by George Bonsor, and ″disarticulate unburnt bones″ found. There is also a cluster of fourteen cairns which are linked by prehistoric field walls or banks but the relationship between the two is not established. The only menhir to be excavated on Scilly is the Old Man of Gugh, a 2.7 m (9 ft) tall standing stone which lies at the base of Kittern Hill, but there was no features or finds. There is also a cluster of nineteen cairns and a field system on the south part of Gugh along with a further two entrance graves. An English Civil War battery was built over one on Carn of Works and its chamber re-used as a magazine. The Civil War defences are concentrated around the Scillonian coast to defend the deep-water approaches. Part of Gugh is a Scheduled Monument and the whole island is recommended for scheduling.
For centuries Gugh seems to have been uninhabited and used by the residents of St Agnes for cattle grazing. Two kelp pits have been recognised, one on the north-east side of Kittern Hill and the second at Tol Tuppens. Burning seaweed was introduced in 1684 by Mr Nance on Teän to provide sodium carbonate for glass-making, and continued until 1835. Kelp burning only produces 2–3 percent sodium carbonate, and during the 19th century more efficient commercial and industrial methods ended the practice locally. In the 1920s, a retired surveyor and former consulting engineer of the Corporation of Wimbledon, William Hamlet Cooper (died 10 September 1932), formerly of Colchester, secured the lease of the island, built the two buildings that can be seen today and started a farm. He lived on the island, along with his housekeeper. In a 1925 letter to the Western Morning News he wrote of his attempts to control black-backed gulls (greater or lesser is not recorded), which included constant shooting and the destruction of nearly 2,000 eggs. In 1924, none of his animals could graze on the northern part of the island during the nesting season due to attacks on his cattle and sheep, which included the loss of a valuable ram which never recovered from the injuries received. In Cooper's will it states that if he died on Gugh he should be buried on the island at Kittern Hill (place of death is not mentioned). An auction of the animals and crops owned by Cooper occurred on Gugh on 21 October 1932. Animals listed were 80 fowls (mostly white leghorn), two Kerry cows, a heifer, two farm horses and 69 pigs. Also for sale was 5 tons of potatoes, 50 cartloads of mangold wurzels, 5 tons of hay, 3 tons of barley grain, 35 cwt of bran and 10 tons of lime. The buyer also had the right to harvest 2 acres of narcissus bulbs (Soleil d'Or, Scilly White and Princeps). A fire on the island in September 1933 burnt for a week with the island said to be ablaze from end to end. The fire was put out by the staff of Major Dorrien-Smith and the farmhouse and farm buildings owned by Mr Theo Bond and his wife, the only inhabitants, were saved. The Bonds formerly lived on St Martin's, spent their honeymoon on Gugh, and decided to live there and continue flower production.
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