Star Castle, on the top of Garrison Hill, is not a very imposing building. Its name, which used to be “Stella Mariæ” (Star of Mary), is derived from the star-like plan of its projecting bastions, which surround a dwelling-house with corresponding projections. The walls are loopholed for musketry at every possible point, ninety-six loopholes altogether. Above the entrance are the initials of Queen Elizabeth, “E.R.,” and the date, “1593,” when the Castle was built.
Prisoners from the mainland have been confined here from time to time; Dr. Bastwick, of Colchester, in 1637, by order of the Star Chamber, for writing against the Church and Government; in 1655 John Biddle, the Unitarian, was sent to Scilly by Cromwell to keep him out of the way of his persecutors, and allowed a pension of 10s. a week; and in 1681 seven “Popish priests” were removed thither from Newgate.
It is a very beautiful walk round Garrison Hill—a walk of which one can never tire. Heath compares it to “the Mall at St. James’s, where people walk for health and amusement”; but to the Nature-lover the Mall is dull indeed compared with Garrison Hill. The circuit can easily be made in half an hour, for the distance is not more than a mile and a half; and yet in that short time a sight of nearly all the islands, and a good idea of their relative position, can be obtained.
From the north one looks down on St. Mary’s Pool, full of brown-sailed fishing-boats in the early summer, and never without a sprinkling of craft, large or small, upon its bosom. Beyond the Pool, to the right, may be seen the country-side of St. Mary’s, and following on, one after the other from east to west, St. Martin’s Isle; Tean; St. Helen’s, with the lighthouse tower of Round Island showing over its head; the wooded slopes of Tresco, and Cromwell’s Castle low down on its western shore, clearly visible across three miles of sea; green, hilly little Bryher; and the twin peaks of Samson.
As one bears round to the west and south-west, there are St. Agnes, and Annet, and the grim rocks of the western archipelago, with the white foam ever, even in the calmest weather, playing round their feet, and flying over their heads. On clear days the waves may be seen leaping up the slender shaft of the Bishop Lighthouse, more than five miles away.
On the south there is the illimitable ocean; and as the east side is reached there come into sight, first the rocky head of Peninnis, and then the curve of Porth Cressa, overlooked by Buzza Hill and the ruined windmill that crowns it. A little farther on, and the massive walls of the Garrison reach their highest, and are draped and curtained with mesembryanthemum; while beneath their shelter there are orchards full of fruit-trees, carpeted with daffodils; and one can see the columns of blue smoke rising from the chimneys of Hugh Town, which lies below.
In making the circuit of the hill we have kept our eyes fixed seaward all the way; but if we turn towards the hill itself we see that almost everywhere it is afire with gorse: and sorely it tempts me to tell again the oft-told tale of Linnæus and Putney Hill!
The gorse is one of the great glories of the islands; it grows on almost every open down, and on the slope of almost every hill. On a calm summer’s day, when the hot sun brings out the sweet and heavy odour, and the drowsy hum of myriads of bees, garnering their store from the golden blossoms, mingles with the gentle lapping of the sea upon the shore, then Scilly becomes a veritable land of the lotos-eaters, and one feels content to do no more than lie upon a slope of springy heather, and “watch the crisping ripples on the beach, and tender curving lines of creamy spray.”
It is only since the latter part of the sixteenth century that Hugh Town has become the capital of the islands. Before that time there was another town whose houses clustered round the Castle of Ennor, a mile away from the present capital. The village that now remains is known as Old Town, and the bay on which it stands as Old Town Bay.