Looe Island

Looe Island additionally called St George's Island, and traditionally St Michael's Island is a small island a mile from the mainland town of Looe off Cornwall, England. According to local legend, Joseph of Arimathea landed right here with the child Christ. Some people, together with Glyn Lewis, endorse the island might be Ictis, the vicinity defined by using Diodorus Siculus as a centre for the tin alternate in pre-Roman Britain. The island is now owned and controlled by way of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust charity in which get entry to is carefully managed for the gain of natural world and landing is only feasible thru the Cornwall Wildlife Trust legal boatman. The waters across the island are a marine nature reserve and form part of the Looe Voluntary Marine Conservation Area.

First mounted in 1995, the Looe VCMA covers nearly five km of shoreline and ambitions to protect the coastal and marine wildlife round Looe. People have been living on Looe Island since the Iron Age. Evidence of early habitation includes pieces of Roman amphorae in addition to stone boat anchors and Roman coins. In the Dark Ages, the island was used a seat of early Christian settlement. The child Jesus was believed to have visited the Island along with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who traded with the Cornish tin buyers. Therefore, Looe Island have become an area of pilgrimage for early Christians and a small thatched roofed chapel changed into built there at some stage in this time.