Breqhou, Sark
 

Hello All, I plan to be visiting the channel islands at the end of April / beginning of May 2014. I would like to visit the gardens on private island of Breqhou off Sark. From my reading the only way on is to stay in the favoured hotels. If that is true I am willing to do it but they say tours don't start until the end of May and I would really like to see it while I am there. Has anyone ever been? Is there another way to visit the Island? Kinloch

Basically it's a boat from St Peter Port or get to be a social contact of the Barclay brothers.

OH my! Good luck, Kinloch. I knew nothing of this island until your post but I'm desperate to go there now.

Have you tried calling or emailing the tourist board in Guernsey to ask?

You could also try emailing and asking the concierge at Old Government House hotel...?

You could charter a yacht and sail there. We used to be long to a sailing club and sailed there from Salcombe a very long time ago. i don't remember the gardens though. or just get the ferry from jersey or guernsey:

http://www.sarkshippingcompany.com/

the garden's website suggests that there is no trouble about visiting - they are open every day from Easter to October:

http://www.laseigneuriegardens.com/visiting.html

there is an e-mail address which invites further inquiries.

annhig - you've misunderstood the exam question. Kinloch wants to visit Brecqhou, which is a small privately owned island just of the west coast of Sark. It's technically part of Sark, but is owned by the reclusive Barclay brothers, the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph.

I'm a regular visitor to the Channel Islands but I wasn't even aware that you could visit Brecqhou (the Barclay bros value their privacy), but apparently there is some scheme where residents of some of the hotels on Sark can do so: http://www.sarkislandhotels.com/brecqhou

La Seigneurie Gardens on the other hand are actually ON Sark, and are open to the public without any special restrictions.

oh dear, 0/5 for me.

thanks for pointing out my error, Gordon.

You used to be able to visit Brecqhou as a guest of one of the Barclay owned hotels. However these are now closed owing to a lack of demand, resulting from poor project management. However the Seigneurie gardens are a delight and definitely worth a visit at any time of the year. Fly to Guernsey and then catch the ferry to Sark. Have a good trip!

Hi All, I spent a lot of time planning my trip then I bought all my tickets and booked hotels and tried to concentrate on real life and not spend all my time dreaming. However I live in south western Ontario Canada where it is -30C and we have had so much snow in the last 24 hours we can not even get out our driveway so I am back to dreaming. I will submit a trip report after my trip. Currently I am booked into a Barclay Bros hotel and they assure me I will be seeing the gardens. Kinloch

Will you PLEASE send some of that snow our way. We are in a true drought in California and our snow pack is about 10% of normal :(

The BBC have been running the latest series of "An Island Parish" recently. This is a reality programme which, this series, chronicles the lives of the 600 Sark islanders through the year. Probably not much help if you're outside the UK and can't download programmes on BBC iPlayer, but here's the link anyway:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03qgr97