The Island at Towan Beach
A well known landmark to locals and holidaymakers is the little house that sits atop an island off the shore of Towan Beach in Newquay, England. Featured in many postcards, “The Island House”, as it is known, has become symbolic of Newquay itself.
The Island has been used as a rather small potato farm, a chicken run, a Sunday School classroom, an art gallery, a guest house, and a tea room. However, today it is the home of the 4th Viscount Long and his wife Lady Helen.
To get to the Island House one must cross a 30-metre long miniature suspension foot bridge.
The footbridge was supposedly modelled after the suspension bridge in Bristol.
The Island was kept from being entered into Guinness as the “World’s Smallest Full-time Inhabited Island” by a European Union directive in 2003 that classified islands as having at least fifty people living on them. So the Island House should actually be called the Outcrop House.
Lady Helen once quipped,
Being referred to as Lady of the Outcrop sounds like I have a bad case of chickenpox.
So “brand new”...” 
So there’s no such thing as an uninhabited island, then? How ridiculous!
I guess not (at least according to the EU). However, there does appear to be an inhabited outcrop.
Interesting if a bit short.
Surprisingly there was not a great dearth of quality, legitimate information about the Island House. One thing I did not include was that Lord and Lady Long have had many issues with all-night ravers that party on the beach below. They’ve asked for help from the local council, but didn’t receive anything satisfactorily. Last thing I could find out was that the house was up for sale for around £750,000 or $1.25 million USD.
Some photos: http://www.panoramio.com/map/#lt=50.415570&ln=-5.082797&z=-1&k=1&a=1&tab=1
Filipe, thanks for the link to some great ground level photos. I lived in Newquay for two years and was kicking myself writing this post that I had never taken any snapshots myself.
Here there be dragons I was starting to look for a comparable bridging project I was involved in many moons ago, not far from your esteemed selves (just east of Haddington), only to discover the area is STILL covered by a cloud layer. Now, I realise it’s wet there, but SURELY it’s not been so wet the area can’t be done some time? Some places have been shot five or six times, perhaps it’s time to give a decent first cover on the terra incognita?
I have actually stayed here – and proposed to my fiancée on the balcony overlooking the bay.
Lady Long does a lovely breakfast in the morning!
Hi Can you tell me the name of the hotel or where i can locate to book please?Thanks
The episode of ITV’s Countrywise featuring an iterview with Lady Long is available at http://www.itv.com/ITVPlayer/Video/default.html?ViewType=5&Filter=42112 for the next 15 days.
Unfortunately it’s 15mins in, just after the break, which means rather a lot of ads.