Why this Isles of Scilly hotel is heaven on earth for families

Hell Bay Hotel is England’s most westerly hotel – Rebecca Rees Photography

“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Is there a more annoying phrase? It’s always said by people with an irritating abundance of personal freedom. You rarely hear it, for example, from those whose lives revolve exclusively around journeys to and from children’s schools, clubs and swimming lessons. In rush hour.

Still, our last family “journey” did give me pause. Hell Bay Hotel, on the island of Bryher in the Isles of Scilly, is England’s most westerly hotel. Those swimming in cash travel by helicopter. The strapped for time take a small plane. Their views over emerald fields and azure Atlantic are gorgeous, but the ease disconnects you from the distance you’re travelling, and thus the extraordinary, eccentric remoteness of where you’re heading.

Hell Bay Hotel has recently been given a refresh by interior designer Tania Streeter – Rebecca Rees Photography

The ferry, of course, is cheaper – though, at £84 each way for adults, and £47 for children aged two to 11, it’s still a punchy price. Children under two are charged at £23; even a dog is £11. It is, though, a genuine adventure.

First you have to get to Penzance which, when you are travelling from darkest Norfolk in a highly capricious car, is an odyssey in itself. Next up, the Scillonian III: a big, white whale of a ferry that skirts the Cornish cliffs, churns across the big blue and disgorges its – by then slightly wobbly – passengers into the idyllic harbour at St Mary’s, the largest of the Isles of Scilly.

Next you are scooped into a cheery little vessel, landed on a deserted beach at Tresco (Bryher’s neighbouring island), bumped across dunes by electric shuttle before, finally, a Popeye-sized boat putters across to Bryher, where the Hell Bay Hotel’s Land Rover waits on the sand. And all before lunch.

Rooms have a Californian vibe – Rebecca Rees Photography

Remember The Wizard of Oz, when the tornado lifts Dorothy from her mundane monochrome world, and drops her into a technicolour wonderland? Picture waves, not wind, and you have it. Because everything on Bryher and Tresco is brighter. The sea is luminescent. The sand actually glitters. Heather is tinselled in canary yellow and vivid violet buds. Red lobster pots glow in the sun.

Neither island has cars. But while Tresco is a pristine, chic paradise, Bryher is its smaller, wilder sibling. Where Tresco has smooth paths, Bryher is crossed by tracks and footpaths. Where Tresco has a boutique (shirts for £165), Bryher has honesty boxes stocking fudge, chilli jam and almost indecently large veg.

In place of bougie beach restaurants, it has a white-washed tearoom and a bar that closely resembles a fisherman’s front room. The islands being so close, and the ferry so regular, you needn’t pick one character over another. Still… Bryher was an immediate perfect fit for our feral family.

Hell Bay Hotel sits right by the water – Rebecca Rees Photography

Knowing the island was paradise for children, Michael Morpurgo set many of his books here. While neighbouring Tresco is gentle and sandy, Hell Bay Hotel sits on the rocky, piratical shore, where waves crash against colossal sea stacks. The island is so small (half a square mile) you can often see both sides at once and we traipsed the lot in an afternoon, passing ruins, cattle and a chorus of sea birds.

In summer, you can hire sailing boats. We picked up kayaks, paddling in water so clear it was almost like floating mid-air, past – because Bryher sits in the path of the Gulf Stream – improbable palm trees and giant succulents.

The hotel itself has an oddly Californian edge too. It has an outdoor pool (heated, thankfully), and like a motel, all 25 rooms are accessed individually from the outside – ideal for families splashing straight from beach to room. To one side, the hotel borders a sheltered beach.

Enjoy pre-dinner drinks with a view – Rebecca Rees Photography

From our downstairs suite – one of four with two bedrooms, a large bathroom and a generous corridor for wellies, coats, wetsuits and more – we could just see its waters from bed. The children ran from the patio doors down to the sand. I swam. Someone had hung a makeshift hammock high in the rocks above.

Inside, the hotel has recently had a facelift. Interior designer Tania Streeter has given it a fashionable dusting of coral pink and coastal blue. A little rattan here, some tongue-and-grooving there. There remains, however, something charmingly old-school and uniquely British about the place. Our bathroom had a sensible bath-over-shower.

The hotel is home to home to the Isles of Scilly’s only three-AA Rosette restaurant – Rebecca Rees Photography

The owners are art collectors, and their influence too pervades. Taking your pre-prandial in the lounge, you are surrounded by landscapes fine enough to vie for attention with the waves through the window. In the bar, however, we lunched from a family-friendly menu of delectable burgers and fish and chips, beneath a hunky angel hurling a frisbee at a definitively worldly bikini-clad babe. Cue a lively theological debate with the 13-year-old boy.

Later, in the dining room that is home to the Isles of Scilly’s only three-AA Rosette restaurant (delivering up traditional, delicate fish-focused dishes), we turned to our fellow guests for a conversational life-raft. Some had been returning for decades. One man had come to propose. She said yes. It’s that sort of place. People make pilgrimages, then become addicted. It’s about the journey and the destination both.

Essentials

Hattie and her family travelled as guests of Isles of Scilly Travel (islesofscilly-travel.co.uk). Hell Bay Hotel offers stays for family of four from £290, including breakfast.

Bryher, Isles of Scilly TR23 0PR (01720 422947; hellbay.co.uk)

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