The Isles of Scilly, standing athwart the main shipping lanes from the Atlantic to the UK, have always posed a threat and, over the centuries, hundreds of ships have come to grief on the many rocks, possibly the most famous being the disastrous wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s fleet in 1707. To try to avoid shipwrecks, there are several lighthouses on the islands, one of the more unusual being Peninnis Light on the southernmost tip of St. Mary’s guarding shipping in St. Mary’s Sound between St. Mary’s and St. Agnes’.
