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With its wood-panelled elegance and manicured lawns overlooking the sea, you might be surprised that rooms at Herm’s solitary hotel - The White House - come without phones, TVs or even clocks. But then the only reason you might want to know the time on Herm is if you aren’t lucky enough to be staying and have to catch the ferry for the 20-minute ride back to Guernsey.

Our bed isn’t at the White House, though. Climbing a steep path from the pier past pastel cottages we wind through a mass of greenery to the top of the hill where an old stone archway leads into a cobbled courtyard. On one side is the tiny 11th-century St Tugual’s Chapel, on the other is Sea Campion, our temporary home amid a row of rough-stoned cottages.

There is a gogglebox inside, but the only channel my 12-year-old daughter Freya seems keen to watch is Little Roussel, the islet-strewn patch of ocean dividing Herm from Guernsey. By the door, housemartins dart in and out of their nest as an old kettle begins a welcoming whistle on the stove. Who needs phones, TVs or clocks?

We aren’t the first to bunk down on Herm seeking peace and quiet. Though standing stones and burial chambers point to settlers as long ago as 3000BC, Herm’s first recorded inhabitants were 6th century monks (the island‘s name is supposedly an abbreviation of ‘hermits’).

They must have found the island a lovely miniature of God’s handiwork, just 1 ½ miles long and ½ mile wide. Sandy beaches wrap themselves around Herm’s northern half, from Fishermen‘s Beach by the pier to tiny Belvoir Bay tucked between two headlands on the opposite side. From there, the shore rises into towering sea cliffs girdling the island’s southern section, with views across to Sark and Herm’s even tinier neighbour Jethou - reputedly once joined to Herm until a huge storm in 709 washed away the link.

Lying on Shell Beach it’s hard to imagine Nature as anything other than benign. Herm’s star attraction looks like a escapee from a Caribbean brochure, its pearl white sand speckled with the millions of tiny coloured shells that inspire its name. Most day-trippers head straight here, a short walk from the pier then down the path near the blue-painted Fisherman’s Cottage, passing Neolithic mementoes on a little sandy trail that weaves between tall grass on one side and the remnants of the island‘s short-lived 1930s golf course on the other.

With time on our hands, we take a more indirect route, ambling down the track that runs along the spine of the island behind our cottage, hemmed by hedgerows teeming with butterflies. We break cover by the Neolithic tomb then head out onto the wildflower-dappled common behind the dunes at Oyster Rock.

Just beyond a line of waving sea grasses, the sands of Mouisonniere Beach stretch along the northern edge of Herm. At low tide its rock pools are perfect for pottering, sun-warmed water full of tiny creatures. We begin collecting beach treasure - tiny cowrie shells, perhaps, and gossamer thin crab skeletons, white and fragile.

Shell Beach is even more impressive approaching from its deserted northern end, marked by a gaggle of little rocky islets dropped haphazardly into a turquoise sea. The water is crystal clear, though cold enough to take my breath away, and I’m thankful to grab hot tea at the beach café, before a rich yellow scoop of local ice cream provides more chilled pleasure.

Fossicking among the shells, the sun warms us again, and we decide to walk on, the path steepening as it follows the rising cliffs. Above the beach and café at Belvoir Bay, the day-trippers peel off, taking the path inland over Herm’s midpoint and back down to the pier.

We have the southern half of the island to ourselves. Walking along the cliffs, Freya looks out for puffins among the seabirds soaring around us. Progress is slow as we stop constantly to take in the view across the choppy Big Roussell, the channel between Herm and another of Guernsey’s coterie of islands, Sark.

I try and explain to Freya how Sark - Europe's sole surviving feudal state - is run by a hereditary ruler known as The Seigneur. “Like a King,” she asks. “Not quite,” I say, then give up and try and explain the oddities of how Herm is run instead.

After centuries of rule from nearby Normandy, the Channel Islands transferred allegiance to the British Crown in the 13th century - though not much changed on Herm, which remained a hideaway for Norman monks until the 1500s, and then a hunting ground for Guernsey’s governors.

It was the 18th century that saw Guernsey’s rulers begin leasing out Herm to anyone with money and a desire to run their own island. In the 19th century, there was innkeeper Pierre Mauger, described by one local as “a damned thief and a damned rascal”, followed by brandy smuggler Montague Joseph Fielder, the first tenant to try and attract tourists to the island by opening the inn which eventually became The White House.

Then along came a German royal, Prince Blucher. The grandson of the general who fought against Wellington at Waterloo, his eccentric touches included giving the Manor House its mock castle crenulations and a doomed attempt to introduce wallabies to the island before, with the outbreak of WW1, the Prince was sent packing as an “enemy alien“.

Novelist Compton Mackenzie (of Whisky Galore fame) stepped in after the Great War, cancelling a planned South Sea sailing adventure with DH Lawrence, much to the latter’s fury. Lawrence got his own back with a thinly-disguised caricature of Mackenzie in the story ‘The Man Who Loved Islands‘.

Mackenzie did love Herm, though, bringing it to fictional life in his novel Fairy Gold before ill health and money troubles forced him to sell the lease to motoring tycoon Sir Percival Perry, who entertained the likes of Henry Ford here in the 1930s.

Perry’s tenure was cut short by uninvited guests when, along with the rest of the Channel Islands, Herm was occupied by the Nazis in 1940. Thankfully, the Germans left Herm much as it was, though Shell Beach was pressed into action for a propaganda film claiming to show a Nazi invasion of the Isle of Wight!

The Woods’ family have run Herm since the war, and they have driven the island’s transformation from rich man’s plaything to a tourist gem that also supports a thriving permanent community of around 50 people.

The bustling restaurants around the pier play their part in the success of Herm Inc. At the Mermaid Tavern’s restaurant, we tucked into sea bass with braised fennel and a salad of rocket, tiger prawns and chorizo beneath suitably nautical paintings. Lunch in the sunny courtyard a couple of days later is a fine duet of home-made crab cakes washed down with Monty’s Guernsey bitter. Another night, we smarten up for The White House where a daily changing menu features dishes like duck with boudin noir and pistachio or poached cod with crab and parsley cream.

Walking back up the hill after dinner one night, the sunset drops blues, oranges and pinks into a mirror-like sea. As we reach the cottages, a trio of teenage girls skip by, arms linked as they chatter in the twilight, like a mirage from a bygone era.

Herm seems to encourage simple togetherness. No-one just pleases themselves here, for example - if you live on Herm, you pitch in, like the pastry chef at The White House who uses her sewing skills to also keep the hotel curtains spick and span.

Keen to hear at first hand about running an island, we go to the Sunday morning service organised by Pennie Wood and her husband Adrian Heyworth at St Tugual’s. It’s only half an hour, as Adrian offers a couple of readings and everyone belts out a quartet of well-known hymns, ending by Herm tradition with For Those In Peril On The Sea.

The couple’s enthusiasm for their island home is clear. Pennie tells us about the new plants she plans to add to Herm’s already amazing diversity, while Adrian reveals his additional role as the island’s policeman - though he admits the uniform and truncheon have never had to come out of the cupboard. Peace, beauty, community. You could say Herm turns back the clock - if only you could find one.

GETTING THERE
Norman Miller flew to Guernsey with Aurigny (0871 871 0717, aurigny.com). Boat transfer from St Peter Port to Herm. Further information from Visit Guernsey (01481 723552, visitguernsey.com)

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