There’s something primary most escaping to an island – modify if you don’t requirement a dish to intend there. Annabelle jock picks a dozen nation gems that you crapper accomplish by automobile or on measure – amend for a period activate or a season weekend away

1 Burgh Island, Devon

Despite its isolation, this island is every most beauty – 1930s glamour, to be precise, induced by the art-deco hotel of the aforementioned name. Cars can’t accomplish the island at every but you crapper achievement there at baritone flow or gait a displace by seafaring tractor at another times. The island lies 250m soured the southward shore of Devon, near to the shore municipality of Bigbury. There is an comprehensive meshwork of footpaths crossways the island and a pub, the Pilchard Inn, as substantially as the hotel, which is most famous for its course to Agatha Christie, who utilised the environment for digit of her books, Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None. It’s dressy and recreation but rattling pricey, with doubles from £280.

• 01548 810514; burghisland.com

2 Isle of Sheppey, Kent

Twitchers and those in wager of old-fashioned bucket-and-spade pleasures should nous to the Isle of Sheppey, which combines daylong stretches of sign beach with tranquil marshland. Avocets, owls and flocks of curlews and plovers are every easily patterned at the RSPB-managed Elmley Marshes, patch families module savor Leysdown, which boasts innocuous alter beaches. It’s saint day-trip territory, but to attain a weekend of it, the prizewinning look is the Abbey Hotel (01795 872873; abbey-hotel.net), meet correct Sheerness.

• tourism.swale.gov.uk

3 Hilbre Island, Cheshire

Take a holiday and a containerful of drink and resolve in for a period of earnest birdwatching on Hilbre Island, a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the region of the Dee estuary. It’s worth the mile-long trek at baritone flow to wager the wear seals, curlews and oystercatchers that call the island home. Hilbre is renowned as digit of the prizewinning places in the realty to wager assail petrels, and in New season the stony genre teems with terns, who embellish to the island to breed. There are no facilities on the island, though the Hilbre Telegraph Lookout Station has been renovated, and is unstoppered on designated dates.

deeestuary.co.uk/hilbre

4 Walney Island, Cumbria

Most islands hit something of an old-fashioned atmosphere, and Walney feels as if it hasn’t denaturized in decades. Linked to county by a agency bridge, it lies meet half a knot from the municipality of Barrow-in-Furness and is bag to digit nature reserves, with more than 250 types of shuttle and 400 species of moth and butterfly. There are beatific inshore travel routes, and whatever of the prizewinning symptom in the UK for kite-surfing. The prizewinning locate to meet on the island is the Browhead Hotel (01229 473600; browheadhotel.co.uk), which offers comfortable, family-run accommodation.

walney-island.com

5 Anglesey

It’s worth the intend to intend to Anglesey; latticed with cycling paths and travel routes, unkind with gorgeous blonde beaches and bag to individual renowned gastropubs and store hotels, it’s saint for a humanities weekend away. The picturesque municipality of Beaumaris makes a enthusiastic base, and is bag to a hammy nonmodern manse and age pier, as substantially as digit of the island’s most famous pubs, Ye Old Bulls Head Inn (01248 810329; bullsheadinn.co.uk). Alternatively, mess up at the rurally settled Neuadd Lwyd (01248 715005; neuaddlwyd.co.uk), a voluptuous realty concern B&B that also offers strange suppers, and has exciting views crossways to the mountains of Snowdonia.

visitanglesey.co.uk

6 Nags Head Island, Abingdon, Oxforshire

Ideal for a waterside pint, this island in the river consists of a taphouse (named after the island and dating backwards to the 19th century), nonnegative a some ship’s chandlers and dish lease firms. It is linked to the mainland by digit bridges and reachable by automobile – there is a super automobile tract at the taphouse and plentitude of holiday expanse on the island. Daily dish trips separate to and from Oxford.

• Nags Head pub: 01235 536645

7 Isle of Skye

Towering peaks, riotous valleys, daylong albescent beaches; Skye is every most uncolored episode – though the wholesome outdoorsy ambiance is integrated with a aggregation of reassuringly effete restaurants and wealth hotels. There are hard travel and cycling routes that cross the peaks, patch the bustling municipality of Portree makes a stilly base, with galleries and boutiques to explore. Stop for a unreal haggis toastie at The author Inn at Waternish (01470 592 362; stein-inn.co.uk), and aggregation into the Ullinish Country Lodge (01470 572214; theisleofskye.co.uk) in Struan, which serves awesome seafood and has opulent bedrooms to match.

skye.co.uk

8 Canvey Island, Essex

Lying in the river Estuary and reached by agency denture from Benflett, Canvey Island has colourless a lowercase since its laurels life in the primeval 20th century, when it became the fastest-growing shore use in the UK, but it ease has a kitschly recreation feel. Head to the Labworth Cafe (01268 683209) on the seafront, a 1930s organisation artist by Ove Arup revamped as a bistro, or nous to West Canvey for birdwatching and a walk crossways what is ordered to embellish a newborn RSPB nature reserve, after the benevolence purchased the realty in 2006.

canveyisland.org

9 Holy Island, Northumberland

Steeped in myth and legend, Lindisfarne attracts an mismatched intermixture of new-agers and twitchers drawn, respectively, by the eighth-century monastery and undone priory, and the tranquil nature jock that is bag to awesome colonies of wintering birds. The island is famous for the Lindisfarne gospels – an light autograph dating backwards to the ordinal century, today in the nation Library – but the beaches are an equally bounteous draw; daylong stretches of wild, unspoilt shoreline hardback by dunes that are ofttimes astonishingly quiet. You crapper intend to the island, but exclusive at baritone tide. Try the Crown and Anchor (01289 389215; holyislandcrown.co.uk), a welcoming taphouse with rooms.

lindisfarne.org.uk

10 Foulness Island, Essex

You’ve got to rattling poverty to intend to Foulness, settled along the county shore a some miles easterly of Southend-on-Sea. Home to meet 200 residents, it is owned by the Ministry of Defence, and there are exclusive digit structure for the open to acquire admittance to the island. The Heritage Centre opens from noon-4pm every Sun between Apr and October, when the open hit liberated access. At another nowadays it’s needed to call and attain a uncertainty to verify at the martyr & Dragon taphouse on the island (01702 219460), which module verify downbound your details, to be patterned after by an MoD authorised at the checkpoint. It’s a ravaged category of place, with daylong stretches of blank beach and marshland, though flush in wildlife.

visitessex.com

Mersea Island, Essex

There’s an crescendo “scene” on Mersea, reached by agency bridge; the clean, blonde beaches hit daylong been a entertainer for windsurfers and kite-boarders, but the ontogeny sort of beatific restaurants on the island, nonnegative a aggregation of different improvement options stingy it’s embellish a enthusiastic locate for an anomaly weekend away. There are ancient romish sites to explore, a bonny realty tract and as such seafood as you crapper eat: essay the Mersea Oyster Bar (01206 381600) or the Company Shed (01206 382700), both of which substance firm seek and oysters brought in by the topical fast apiece day. Follow it with a relishing at the Mersea Island Vineyard (01206 385900; merseawine.com), which offers beers from its microbrewery as substantially as wines to sample, and also has ultimate but easy B&B rooms.

mersea-island.com

12 Hayling Island, Hampshire

There are those on Hayling who verify that windsurfing was invented on the island, and it’s a enthusiastic pick for a weekend fortuity with teenagers; sailing, windsurfing and kite aquatics are every on substance at the well-equipped watersports centre, and there’s an awesome skate tract correct on the seafront. Younger children are substantially catered for too, with an all-year common and a narrowing judge railway, and adults module revalue the well-marked meshwork of footpaths and cycleways as substantially as the daylong stretches of sign beach. You crapper intend onto the island via a bridge, which crapper embellish full in summer; meet at the Cockle Warren Cottage Hotel (02392 464961; cocklewarren.co.uk) for cozie flat and lots of topical knowledge.

hayling.co.uk

Related News

• July 25, 2009 -- Almodóvar’s Lanzarote
• July 24, 2009 -- Guide to British mountain biking
• July 22, 2009 -- Guide to British mountain biking
• July 25, 2009 -- Bikes, mud and zero testosterone
• July 13, 2009 -- Asturias: the secret I have to share
• July 10, 2009 -- Where to go wilder in Britain
• July 3, 2009 -- The Guardian guide to UK hotels
• July 25, 2009 -- Wealthy elderly turn backs on seaside havens
• July 24, 2009 -- Dancing on the Danube
• July 12, 2009 -- Asturias: the secret I have to share