Lundy Island, Torridge

Before Lundy’s lighthouses were automated in the 1990s, lighthouse keepers occasionally reported seeing a young woman walking near the cliff edge. She was believed to be the ghost of a widow who had thrown herself from the cliffs following her husband’s death. The island’s past is steeped in lawlessness, having served as a haven for pirates, smugglers, and fraudsters. In the 18th century, Thomas Benson, a lease-holder and MP, used Lundy to avoid import duties and to imprison convicts he was paid to transport overseas, using them instead as forced labour. His schemes ended in exile after a staged shipwreck led to charges of insurance fraud.