User:Derek Andrews/mendipway

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Flat Holm (Welsh: Ynys Echni) is a Welsh limestone island lying in the Bristol Channel approximately 6 kilometres (4 mi) from Lavernock Point in Glamorgan. It includes the most southerly point of Wales.

The island has a long history of occupation, dating from Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods. Religious uses include visits by disciples of Saint Cadoc in 1067 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 water from Lavernock to Flat Holm. Because of frequent shipwrecks a pharos was built on the island, which was replaced by a Trinity House lighthouse in 1737, and in 1906, a foghorn. Because of its strategic position on the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff a series of gun emplacements, known as Flat Holm Battery were built as part of a line of defences, known as Palmerston Forts, in the 1860s. On the outbreak of World War II the island was rearmed.

It 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 Gull (Larus fuscus), Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) and Great Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus). It is also home to Slow worms (Anguis fragilis) with larger than usual blue markings.