‘It’s January and we’re in shorts!’: The British islands where winter barely arrived
On Tuesday January 21 at Tresco Abbey Garden, palms wafted languidly under the – admittedly weak – winter sunshine. At least there was sunshine. In London, it was yet another monochrome day. In Lancashire, Clitheroe Castle hid behind gauzy fog. And in the Lake District, the clouds sat so low over the water that they almost threatened to fall in.
It’s been a long, hard slog of a winter so far on most of the mainland, but the Isles of Scilly experienced something of a heatwave in early January, with temperatures reaching 13C. It felt even hotter thanks to intense sunshine that’s partly due to a lack of pollution.
“It’s been really, really nice – I’d even say warm. We were able to be in short sleeves and even shorts,” says local resident Virginia Abalo, who is originally from Argentina but has spent three years on the island of Tresco and plans to stay for at least another season.
Though this mini heatwave was something of an anomaly, temperatures rarely dip below eight degrees in the southernmost bit of the British Isles, an area known for its relatively balmy winter temperatures. It’s down to a micro-climate created by a location in the Gulf Stream, which means there is only a 10 degree difference between January’s average temperature and August’s.
Thanks to the relative warmth, swimming is a year-round part of many residents’ routines. “It is cold, but you go for a swim and then you run into the sauna,” says Abalo. Though undoubtedly chilly, the sea is generally slightly warmer than off the coast of Cornwall and a few degrees more so than in Brighton, Suffolk or Norfolk.
As for those palms in Abbey Garden, they’re accompanied by exotic passion flowers and proteas which thrive in Tresco’s climate. Every New Year, there’s a count of the number of species in bloom in the garden’s packed beds and borders: this year, it was 267.
Meanwhile, narcissi, which typically arrive on the mainland in March, already blanket much of the island. “They’re everywhere,” says Abalo. “You can smell the perfume for miles.”
The profusion of flowers is down to a lack of frost. Growing conditions are so good that flower farming is the second biggest industry after tourism. At one point, before overseas production ramped up, there were 90 flower farms scattered across the islands (now there are nine).
Even amateur gardeners don’t stop for the winter. “We were in T-shirts gardening the other weekend,” says another Tresco resident, Agnes Chapman Wills. “We’re just looking at planting our veg in our vegetable patch because you can really start thinking about things much sooner than you could on the mainland.”
Without the 100,000-or-so tourists that visit over the summer, there’s the opportunity to see the islands’ plus points at leisure when winter draws in too – from footprint-free white sand to the wildlife just offshore. This year, there have been boat trips to spot minke and humpback whales.
“My mum came to stay and couldn’t get over how quiet it is, because she’s never been in winter,” says Chapman Wills. “She thought it felt even more special because, when the sun shines, it’s just spectacular. On a good day, it feels like it could be summer – but the peace is lovely.”
The residents and their relatives are lucky. The tourism industry almost grinds to a halt during off-season on the islands (even the tourist information centre shuts), so it’s much harder for visitors to appreciate all that deserted beauty.
“St Mary’s is the main island and it has one pub and one cafe open, but all accommodation is very much closed, whereas on Tresco we’ve got a bit of accommodation open for short winter breaks,” says Chapman Wills.
The Isles of Scilly don’t avoid bad weather altogether either. They’re known for their dramatic storms, which bring strong winds and driving rain rattling across their landscapes, lighting up the skies, sending waves crashing onto the shores and playing havoc with plane and boat schedules – including school runs across the sea.
Less than a week after all that sunshine, boats between the islands were cancelled due to Storm Herminia’s high seas and strong gales. “We very much try not to stop completely,” says Chapman Wills, who works part-time organising logistics for inter-island boat services. “But, if the weather is really bad, we can do. We don’t really operate in swells more than five or six metres, but it depends on things like the wind direction.”
And last year brought a less common occurrence than storms: snow. “It was for about five minutes but everyone was really excited,” she adds. There’s always the promise of sun before too long though – another hint of a spring that resolutely hits in early March.
While the rest of us struggle through the short days and long nights, “it’s a bit more hopeful here, I think,” says Chapman Wills. “You do get those sunny days and things are in bloom a bit earlier and you do think, ‘okay, it’s not too long now’.”
