Welsh Journals

GRASSHOLM SOME FACTS AND A LEGEND R. M. LOCKLEY INTRODUCTION QUITE a substantial literature is building up about the remote Pembrokeshire islet of Grassholm, most westerly land of any size (nevertheless only twenty-two acres and without fresh water) in Wales. In my book I Know an Island (completed in 1938), I wrote therein, as self-styled historiographer of Grassholm, that among other improbabilities, it seemed unlikely that gannets had settled on Grassholm for more than one hundred years. Today it is more likely that I was in error, as this article will show. In the chapter on Grassholm in this book, I gave its history, as far as the facts I had been able to gather permitted, but could only go back for these to a letter from Mrs. C. Haydon-Bacon, one of the daughters of Captain Davies, who at one time farmed Skomer Island. She wrote: My father took over Skomer and Grassholm from my grandfather in 1860, and there were certainly gannets on the latter then, as if the gannets had arrived after 1860, he would have told every one interested in the fact that they had come there since he had been in possession, in the year so and so. There were always gannets there, but few nests. Specimens of their eggs were greatly prized and were always brought back from Grassholm whenever my father took visitors there." [The italics are mine no wonder the colony remained small !] Another correspondent, Mr. E. Lort-Phillips, wrote to say that in 1883, he camped on Grassholm, and found no more than twenty nests of the gannet. His letter continued In 1883, I was the guest of the late Mr. Richard Mire- house of Angle, who took us out in his yacht and landed us at Grassholm for the night. We were very luxurious as we had a small tent, a keg of fresh water, and a basket of food. The object of our expedition was to inspect the nesting place of a small colony of Roseate terns which then frequented the island. I wonder whether they still do so ? In those days there was only a very small colony of gannets, about twenty nests, not more, but the puffins were there in their thousands (I don't think that I am drawing the' long bow'). We were hard put to find a bit of ground clear of puffin-burrows on which to erect our very small tent, but having, as we thought, done so, we put the tent up. At about 3 a.m., I was awakened by a curious grunting sound under my ear, and on removing my pillow, there was Mr. or Mrs. Puffin, with a very grieved expression, sitting at the entrance of a burrow. I made the amende honorable by clearing a way to the entrance of the tent,