Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU), with volunteer trainees from Scilly and Cornwall, have been surveying and scanning sites of the traditional pilot gig sheds on the islands as part of the Porths and Gigs of the Isles of Scilly Project with funding from from Historic England, Farming in Protected Landscapes, and Cornwall Archaeological Society.
Some gig sheds are protected as Scheduled Monuments, but they are at risk of loss to coastal erosion and rising sea level. The project has allowed the team to re-discover the remains of the old pilot gigs on the islands.
The fieldwork was timed to make use of the extreme low tides that made the news this September, with hundreds of people joining in by walking on the sea bed uncovered between islands. We were also helped by the advance work of the Isles of Scilly Community Archaeology Group, led by Katharine Sawyer, who cleared bracken and brambles by hand on the monuments.
Old passages made through the beach boulders, for launching and recovering gigs, were revealed in full at the extra-low tides. These features are called ‘trackways’ on St Agnes and ‘drangs’ on Bryher (thanks to Jof Hicks and Richard Pearce for this information). They lead to sites of the early pilot gig sheds, some 200 years old or more.
Porth Askin on St Agnes, had two of these trackways, with the five gig sheds above them still surviving as low banks. Volunteer Teän Roberts rediscovered the base of one shed there, by stomping through the bracken covering the ground where it was last mapped a century ago.
It was amazing to see where crews had made and maintained the tidal ways, so that they could operate at any state of tide. At low tide they would have carried their gigs along these routes to and from the sheds, as far as 100m, a long haul after pilotage and rescue work in the open sea.
Full results will be made available online, on a project website (coming up soon). There will be plans and 3D models, by Mark Bowden and Tom Goskar (specialist survey and scanning archaeologists). There will also be a report by Cathy Parkes (project lead archaeologist and Roseland rower), exploring all the sites, informed by local knowledge kindly contributed by island residents.
Besides the gig sheds, the website will feature hilltop lookouts, and old parts of historic gigs preserved when they were repaired on the islands, made available for scanning and modelling thanks to Andy Hicks of Porthloo boatyard on St Mary’s. Evidence is emerging for approximately 80 old gig sheds around the islands. We’ve found archaeological remains at around 50 of these sites, ranging from standing walls to traces of a slipway.
Which gigs were housed in which sheds? It’s one fascinating question. Books have recorded some of this information in the last fifty years, members of the community have passed on further knowledge to CAU, and more could still be discovered.
Several rare archive photos show the traditional sheds with thatched roofs, and doorways of salvaged timber, some still serving in the mid-20th century. If you know of any information or pictures of the old sheds, please contact Cathy Parkes via cathy.parkes@cau.org.uk.
Cathy Parkes, Senior Archaeologist, CAU
Old photo of traditional gig shed on Scilly, reproduced thanks to the Isles of Scilly Museum. The location is provisionally identified as Bryher. The Porths and Gigs project would love to hear of any information on this, or any other old gig shed sites (Photo © Isles of Scilly Museum, ref. no. RN07507).
The view along the length of a ruined pilot gig shed at Porth Askin, St Agnes, with volunteer Teän Roberts working on the survey. The shed’s ‘trackway’ through rocks to the open sea can be seen beyond, marked by the falling tide (Photo © CAU).
Canoeists at Porth Askin ─ including a gig rower as it turned out! ─ using one of the old pilot gig ‘trackways’. These have been cleared through the tidal rocks, and lined with boulders to hold other stones back (Photo © CAU).
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