The Tresco flower-fields are, perhaps, on the whole, less picturesque than those on the other islands, on account of the careful way in which they are protected from winds and storms; but you may find many a cluster of narcissi of Nature’s own planting, wayward ones that have preferred to choose their own shelter in the lee of a pile of grey rocks jutting out into the sea, or hidden in a little copse of trees by the shore—trees slender of girth and small of stature, and destined, like Peter Pan, never to grow up.
GIMBLE BAY, TRESCO
The northern part of Tresco is wild and rocky and uncultivated, with bare brown downs stretching across from shore to shore.
On the east, where these downs slope more gently towards the sea, there is the beautiful Gimble Bay, facing towards the islands of Menavawr, Round Island, St. Helen’s, and Norwethel; and lying just outside the bay is the long reef known as Golden Ball Bar, over which the waves are ever breaking in flying foam and with the sound of thunder.
On the north the downs end abruptly in a steep and rock-bound coast. Here is a wonderful cavern known as “Piper’s Hole,” which penetrates inland for a distance of above two hundred feet.
To enter it one has first to descend an iron ladder fixed to the rock, and then to clamber, bent double, along a dark passage, over large stone boulders, worn smooth by the action of the waves. At length the passage opens out into a cavern thirty-four feet high—plenty of room to stand upright now! Here there is a large pool of fresh water, on which a boat is kept during the summer, so that one can be ferried across it and land on the smooth beach of white sand at the far end of the cave.
It used to be said that this Piper’s Hole communicated by a passage under the sea with the small and insignificant cave of the same name on St. Mary’s; that men had entered there and never returned; but that dogs had successfully accomplished the journey, and had reappeared safely at Tresco, at the expense of most of their hair!
There are several other caves along the north coast of Tresco, but none so large as Piper’s Hole.
On the western edge of the downs there are the scanty ruins of Charles’s Castle, which is probably the one described by Leland as “a lytle pyle or fortres.”