Бристоль шығанағындағы Уэльс аралшасы - Флэт Холм

Welsh island in the Bristol Channel

Flat Holm (Ynys Echni) is a Welsh island lying in the Bristol Channel approximately from Lavernock Point in the Vale of Glamorgan. It includes the most southerly point of Wales. The island has a long history of occupation, dating at least from the Bronze Age. Religious uses include visits by disciples of Saint Cadoc in the 5th 6th century AD, and in 1835 it was the site of the foundation of the Bristol Channel Mission, which later became the Mission to Seafarers. A sanatorium for cholera patients was built in 1896 as the isolation hospital for the port of Cardiff. Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock. Because of frequent shipwrecks, a lighthouse was built on the island, which was replaced by a Trinity House lighthouse in 1737. Because of its strategic position on the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff a series of gun emplacements, known as Flat Holm Battery, were built in the 1860s as part of a line of defences, known as Palmerston Forts. On the outbreak of World War II, the island was rearmed. It forms part of the City and County of Cardiff and is now managed by Cardiff Council's Flat Holm Project Team and designated as a Local Nature Reserve, Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area, because of the maritime grassland and rare plants such as rock sea lavender (Limonium binervosum) and wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum). The island also has significant breeding colonies of lesser black backed gulls (Larus fuscus), herring gulls (Larus argentatus) and great black backed gulls (Larus marinus). It is also home to slowworms (Anguis fragilis) with larger than usual blue markings.

The first traces of human habitation of the island are from the late Bronze Age, 900 to 700 BC. A bronze axe head was discovered on the island in 1988, between the island's farmhouse and West Beach.

In the sub Roman period of the 5th 6th century AD, it became a retreat for Saint Cadoc, who lived on the island as a hermit for seven years. His friend, Saint Gildas born in the Kingdom of Strathclyde but educated at the College of Theodosius (Cor Tewdws) in the Kingdom of Gwent, lived at the same time on nearby Steep Holm, and the two sometimes met up for prayers. Gildas eventually left the island to become Abbot of Glastonbury. In June 1815, a Dr Thomas Turner visited Flat Holm in a small boat and was stranded for a week due to high winds. He discovered two Christian graves located close together in a field northeast of the island's present farmhouse; one grave had been opened and contained a male skeleton. The open grave's headstone was made of purbeck marble and engraved with a Celtic cross, but had since broken in two. A second disturbed grave, also marked with a headstone, was found to the southeast and contained a coffin constructed with iron bolts. Inside the coffin were two skeletons which had been doused in lime, indicating that the occupants had probably died from a contagious disease.

Anglo Saxons called the island Bradanreolice. Reolice derives from an Irish word meaning churchyard or graveyard, alluding to the belief that the island had religious significance as a place of burial to people at the time. Records indicate that a Viking fleet from the south of Brittany led by two earls, Ottir (Oter) and Hroald (possibly Ottir's king Ragnall), took refuge on the island following their defeat by the Saxons at Watchet. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records that in 1067, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, mother of Harold II, the last Anglo Saxon king of England, stayed on the island before travelling to St Omer in France after the Norman conquest of England. After the invasion, Robert Fitzhamon formed the Shire of Glamorgan in Wales proper, with Cardiff Castle at the centre of his new domain. Flat Holm came within the parish boundary of St Mary's, one of Cardiff's two parish churches, and was kept as a hereditary property of the Norman Lords of Glamorgan. A survey by archaeologist Howard Thomas in 1979 unearthed a number of medieval potsherds in the vicinity of the farmhouse and found evidence of continuous occupation of the island including middens containing numerous animal bones along with oyster and cockle shells. Fragments of green glazed jugs and flagons from the late 12th to 13th century and shards of pottery from the 14th century were also found on the island. The presence of Pennant sandstone roofing tiles and a fragment of a 14th century glazed ridge tile indicate the existence of a substantial medieval building, possibly a chapel, demolished when the present farmhouse was constructed. Property records from 1542 show that King Henry VIII granted a lease to farm the island to a gentleman by the name of Edmund Tournor. His family remained on Flat Holm until the end of the 17th century when the lease passed to Joseph Robins. Although Flat Holm was in full view of both the Welsh and English coasts, customs authorities were powerless to act as they had no boat to take them to the island. According to tradition, a small cave in the east cliff at Flat Holm was used for the storage of contraband, mainly tea and brandy.

In 1835, clergyman John Ashley from Clevedon voluntarily ministered to the population of the island. Ashley created the Bristol Channel Mission in order to serve seafarers on the 400 sailing vessels which used the Bristol Channel. The mission would later become the Mission to Seafarers, which still provides ministerial services to sailors in over 300 ports. A service is held annually to bless the island. On 13 May 1897, a 22 year old Italian inventor named Guglielmo Marconi, assisted by a Cardiff Post Office engineer named George Kemp, transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock Point near Penarth, Wales. Having failed to interest the Italian government in his project, Marconi had brought his telegraphy system to Britain. Here he met Welshman William Preece who was at that time Chief Engineer of the General Post Office and a major figure in the field. Marconi and Preece erected a high transmitting mast on Flat Holm as well as a receiving mast at Lavernock Point. The first trials on 11 May and 12 failed. On 13 May, the mast at Lavernock was raised to and the signals were received clearly. The message sent by Morse Code was "Are you ready"; the original paper Morse slip, signed by both Marconi and Kemp, is now in the National Museum of Wales.

Flat Holm is located in the Bristol Channel. It is a small, almost circular, limestone island, approximately in diameter, covering It rises in a gentle slope from the exposed western rocky shore to more sheltered easterly cliffs, at the top of which stands the prominent lighthouse. At its highest point it is above sea level. Flat Holm is part of Wales, whereas the nearby island of Steep Holm is part of England. About northwest of Flat Holm are three rocky islets collectively known as The Wolves, measuring approximately by
The tidal range of the Bristol Channel is ; second only to the Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada.

In 1975, the South Glamorgan County Council leased the island for the next 99 years. Flat Holm is now designated as a Local Nature Reserve, as stipulated in that lease. It is managed by the Cardiff Council as The Flat Holm Project. The work of the Flat Holm Project is supported by the registered charity the Flat Holm Society.

In June 2021 Cardiff Council allocated £1.1 million (including £645,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund) to repair the Foghorn Station roof, stabilise and re roof the Old Cholera Hospital, and create new guided tours of the island. The project was expected to take three years.

Flat Holm was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1972. The designation covers the maritime grassland which is mainly concentrated around the edges of the island. There are no endemic plant species but the relative isolation of the island has allowed a number of hardy species such as bird's foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and biting stonecrop (Sedum acre) to thrive. There are also a number of relatively rare plants, such as rock sea lavender (Limonium binervosum), and wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum). The leek grows to 6 feet (2 m) and Flat Holm is one of only five places in the UK where it is found. These include dove's foot crane's bill Geranium molle, an anodyne plant claimed by Nicholas Culpeper to have a wide range of medicinal uses and an "excellent good cure for those that have inward wounds, hurts, or bruises, both to stay the bleeding, to dissolve and expel the congealed blood, and to heal the parts, as also to cleanse and heal outward sores, ulcers and fistulas". The wild peony (Paeonia mascula) was introduced to the island (and nearby Steep Holm), possibly by monks, and has naturalised. Thirty seven plants were taken to the island from Steep Holm by Frank Harris, the farmer at the time, in the 1930s, many of which died during the World War II occupation and fortification of the island. One remaining plant was reintroduced by David Worall, the Flat Holm Warden, in 1982 and is protected by fencing near the path to the lighthouse. A few plants grown from seed also survive in the island's farmhouse garden. The island has a significant breeding colony of over 4,000 pairs of lesser black backed gulls (Larus fuscus), 400 pairs of herring gulls (Larus argentatus), 2 pairs of great black backed gulls (Larus marinus) and varying numbers of common shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) and Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus). The feeding habits of lesser black backed gulls were studied in 1989, and it was shown that smaller clutches were laid than in previous years and that supplementary feeding did not increase egg or clutch size. The island is also home to slowworms (Anguis fragilis). Flat Holm's slow worm population has unusually large blue markings. The island's rabbit population, introduced for farming in the 12th century, Numbers of Soay sheep had declined by 2022 so Boreray sheep were introduced.

The Flat Holm project aims to develop the island as a showcase of sustainable technologies. The original power supply consisted of several diesel generators at different properties and unconnected to each other. In 2006, underground cables were installed to form a 'mini grid' between the farmhouse, workshops and the fog horn keeper's cottage. This was powered with a 13.5 kW inverter/charger system located at the farmhouse with the farmhouse diesel generator as back up. In 2007 the system was extended to include a 27 kWh battery bank charged by two photovoltaic solar arrays of 3 and 5 kW, and by a 6 kW wind turbine sited at a redundant telecommunications tower on the high point of the island.

If a Severn Barrage were ever to be constructed it could have consequences for Flat Holm, depending on the design and the route. A number of studies have been proposed, the latest being when John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, announced a further feasibility study on 25 September 2007 to follow on the report by the Sustainable Development Commission. The proposed barrage would pass two miles (3 km) west of Flat Holm. The study was expected to last at least two years and would be split into two stages. The first, which was likely to run until late 2008, would reach an initial view on whether there are any fundamental issues that would preclude a tidal scheme in the Severn Estuary.

The island was used as a location for the filming of the 1941 British thriller film Tower of Terror. In 1979 the BBC's Let's Look at Wales presented by David Parry Jones featured The Bristol Channel and included the island. The BBC's Countryfile programme broadcast on 17 February 2008 featured Flat Holm and the possibility of a Severn Barrage. In the BBC TV series Torchwood, the March 2008 episode "Adrift" featured the island as home to a secret medical facility. In BBC's Not in My Nature broadcast by BBC One Wales on 23 June 2008, presenter Iolo Williams visited Flat Holm.