"EVER BEEN TO LEATHERCOMBE BAY? AWFULLY JOLLY HOTEL THERE, ON A SORT OF ISLAND. VERY COMFORTABLE AND NO TRIPPERS OR CHARABANCS. GOOD COOKING AND ALL THAT. YOU OUGHT TO GO."
That’s one of the opening passages in Agatha Christie’s "Evil Under the Sun"
Jolly Roger
I like Agatha Christie so I decided to conduct an investigation of my own and find
the wonderful Smugglers’ Island with the amazing Jolly Roger hotel on it somewhere in England, in a bay. Alas, no map of the UK has either Leathercombe Bay or an island with such an intriguing name on it; neither it has the hotel where the "Dame of Detective Story" put Poirot - who, as everybody knows, was quite choosy and punctilious. So I used my gray matter and figured out that Agatha Christie really meant Bigbury Bay, the tiny Burgh Island and, therefore, the Burgh Island Hotel.
"Burgh" obviously means a town, though there is no such thing on the island.
There’s one on the "continent" - or rather, on the southern coast of Devon washed
by the English Channel, called Bigbury-on-Sea. Though even that is more of a village, really. Dartmouth and Plymouth, two main towns in the area, are at least 40 minutes’ drive away. As to the actual island, it only has the hotel and the small 14th century pub called the Pilchard Inn. In theory the pub is opened to everybody but during certain hours it only serves the hotel residents. A cosy palm patio and the Mermaid Bay (in essence a private beach) are fully owned by the Burgh Island Hotel.
On top of everything else it turned out that Agatha Christie did stay in the Burgh
Island Hotel. And it inspired her to write another book – "And Then There Were
None". And trains really don’t go there.
High retro style
What goes to the island of Burgh is the wonderful “sea-faring tractor”. The hotel’s
letter confirming your reservation usually specifies the high and low tide hours
for your arrival date. During low tide you can simply walk to the island by the
solid damp sand. During high tide the only way to get there is by the tractor. This
tradition started in 1966 and of course it’s much more appealing than walking.
Guests are met at the parking lot in Bigbury-on-Sea and taken in a Land Rover
along the narrow winding road to the shore where the tractor is waiting. Essentially
it’s a huge lorry on gigantic 3-metre high wheels with parquet-like tire pattern.
The driver loads your luggage, you get in the lorry and sail over the water (the
wheels are almost completely submerged). On the other side there’s another
Land Rover to take you right to the hotel’s doorstep.
The hotel is unquestionably the most interesting thing in the island - one
may even say, the reason of its existence. Built in 1929 by millionaire Archibald
Nettlefold who loved to invite his friends over to relax after the hassle, the Burgh
Island Hotel still retains the charm of those days. It was the time when Art Deco
was fashionable - strict logic in every detail, luxury and chic, ivory and rare wood
for interior decoration. The Burgh Island Hotel is a true example of the style.
Fortunately, the current owners have no intention of modernising or embellishing
it. There’s no TV but there’s an old-fashioned radio on the bedside table. Instead
of ordinary wardrobes there are chests and walnut hangers for clothes. And
there’s really no need for communications: guests learn all the interesting news
over dinner which is an event in itself, a cause for and a source of gossip. Make
sure you don’t go down to dinner on time: at half past six the guest risks to find
themselves in complete solitude. You must be late. Unusual for punctual Brits,
but still it’s just so. And another important thing: you must dress up for dinner.
Ladies wear evening dresses, the more luxurious the better, gentlemen at the
very least must wear a jacket and tie and ideally tails and bow tie. On top of it
all dinner is usually served in a magnificent ballroom, and on Wednesdays and
Saturdays there is indeed dancing after the meal, usually in couples.
If breakfast is traditionally English - eggs, sausages, toast, white tea, - you’d
do well to order fish and seafood for lunch and dinner. Oysters and scallops are
especially good, caught right here near the hotel in Bigbury Bay. The same goes for
fish. But it doesn’t mean you can’t opt for venison or partridge. Everything which
finds its way to the hotel’s table is delivered from Devon: the suppliers are scattered within a radius of 30-40 kilometres. Chef Mike Reel makes sure the Burgh Island Hotel’s menu is different every day, not to mention more important changes.
The guests usually go to the ancient Pilchard Inn for lunch - the second
and last building on the island. Once upon a time the local fishermen made a
living by catching pilchards. Also, the inn not infrequently served as a shelter
for survivors of shipwrecks and for smugglers, too. So Agatha Christie who
called the island of Burgh "the Smugglers’ Island" wasn’t really lying. Actually,
practically everything she mentioned in the book was true: a wonderful place,
no trains, excellent food. And all that. Even out of season. It’s so nice to go
out to your room’s balcony on a cool January day with a cup of scolding-hot
coffee and sip it while admiring the kite launched by Bigbury kids beating in
the high wind.
One doesn’t want to leave this place for a whole lot of reasons. Firstly,
because the week-end or even the whole week on the island is usually the highest
point of a trip around Devonshire or Cornwall. Also because one just doesn’t want to go anywhere else. Of course Plymouth, the capital of Devon is not so very
far away, but it was heavily damaged by the German bombers, and apart from
the miraculously survived Barbican it doesn’t really have many things worth
seeing. And even Barbican is worth a look mostly because of its former glory:
that’s where the famous Mayflower sailed off to the North America from. It’s
so much better to stay on the island, walk around the cliffs, watch the seals
playing in the tide, the speckled curtains of birds tearing off the coastal rocks,
listen to the wind and the waves and maybe imagine yourself a character of a
classic detective novel. Like the ever immaculate, pin-neat Poirot, who for a
short while just decided to move over to the following address: 20th century,
England, Leathercombe Bay, Smugglers’ Island, the Jolly Roger Hotel.
Sergey Nilsen
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