some local history | 12 Burgh Island Causeway

The history of the site is fascinating, what follows is dredged from the web and may be true in part or even wholly (or hideously wrong - but its fun anyway!). The Island even enters Grail and Arthurian legend as the suggested site of the burial of Joseph of Arimathea.

Its name then is claimed to have been Ictis, and later Ineswitrin the ‘White Tin Island’ which was donated to Glastonbury by the King of Devon.

More recently it became Borough Island, then Burr Island was used and eventually it became Burgh island.

The amazing art deco Burgh Island Hotel was built in early 1929 by Archibald Nettlefold, on the site of a smaller hotel built by a music hall ‘minstrel/comedian’ George Chirwin. Archie is 'immortalised' by the Nettlefold restaurant in the hotel.

In one series of postcards Burgh Island is described as Little Bermuda!

The Burgh Island Causeway Apartments occupy a site on the mainland directly opposite the hotel, pre-the mid 1920s the site was a pilchard packing warehouse, a large block where pilchards were dried using salt before being packed into barrels to ship all over the world.

The small building on top of the island was a Huers hut where men could watch for the shoals of pilchards and warn the village to get ready. The pilchards were brought to the packing shed which stood where the apartments now stand.

As the Burgh Island Hotel developed they replaced the defunct pilchard plant and built a garage to hold the cars which the visitors travelled down in.

They built a large two-storey guests garage which held 50 cars, some in private lockups.

Then it became a visitor attraction (Smugglers Ope) and the Tom Crocker pub was built on the site.

Eventually the hotel fell out of fashion, but was later rescued by the Porters. Their redevelopment required funds so they sold the mainland site in the late 1990s and the garage and visitor attraction was replaced with the Burgh Island Causeway apartments.

We visited the Burgh Island Hotel for our wedding anniversary in 2008 and were completely captivated by the setting.

The hotel and its rebirth are described in Tony Porters excellent history ‘The Great White Palace’.
This has changed again in 2018 and has been lovingly restored and I'm sure that it will continue to evolve, a truly wonderful site and sight, the hotel has seriously ‘stepped up’ its offering.
Its pub The Pilchard Inn is a thoroughly enjoyable historical gem itself!

The current Hotel management have great plans for the hotel and Bigbury.

If anyone comes across more information or more 'correct' information then please let us know. We can change/update this page easily. But although this reflects what we think we know, and what others thought that they knew, but we have no idea what we don't know.

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