Bryher exhibits a procession of prominent hills connected by low-lying necks and sandy bars.

The island has also played a role in film and television productions, featuring in adaptations like "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "When the Whales Came."

[3] The Early Bronze Age saw considerable construction of burial and ceremonial monuments on Bryer, although little evidence of recognisable settlement.

Whilst it is believed that the separation of Bryher, Tresco and Samson by rising sea levels was mostly achieved by 1,500 BC, the Romans were still referring to the Isles of Scilly as one large island as late as the 4th-century.

It would only need sea levels to rise by a few metres for the southern part of Bryher to transform itself into a group of five or six separate islands.

The centre of Bryher is mainly low-lying with arable fields, pasture and housing and is where most of the population live.

[6] The infamous Hell Bay, named for its wild waves and swell, is on the north-west coast of Bryher, immediately to the south of Shipman Head.

A church was originally built on the site in about 1742 (a small building dedicated to 'God and All Saints' which also served the community on Samson).

The Baptist Itinerant Aid Society established Scilly as their first missionary station, with chapels on all the inhabited islands including Bryher.

Augustus Smith, "Lord Proprietor" of the Isles of Scilly, fell out with the Baptists and in 1843 "caused notice to be served at all the chapels", so they were closed.

[16] On 2 October 2007, BBC News reported that before the renovation project it had been 50 years since any major work was done on the off-islands quays.

[20] Secondary pupils board at the St Mary's main campus,[18] staying there on weekdays and coming back and forth to their home islands on weekends.

It is separated from the sea by a storm beach and small dune system, and is the only natural brackish lagoon on Scilly with plants such as Saltmarsh Rush (Juncus gerardii) and Beaked Tasselweed (Ruppia maritima).

[24] Covering 12 hectares (30 acres) of the southern part of the island is the Rushy Bay and Heathy Hill SSSI which has a number of nationally rare plants.

An Isles of Scilly speciality is the Dwarf Pansy (Viola kitaibeliana) which grows nowhere else in Great Britain.

Orange Bird's-foot, Small Adder's-tongue (Ophioglossum azoricum) and Autumn's Lady's-tresses (Spiranthes spiralis) grow on Heathy Hill.

Two quays are used (depending on tides) by boats which take tourists between Bryher and other islands, including St Mary's and Tresco.

On some low tides it is possible to walk between Bryher and Tresco and even Samson, the uninhabited island to the south.

Bryher features in various books: The Wreck of the Zanzibar, The Sleeping Sword, Why the Whales Came and Listen to the Moon, all by Michael Morpurgo, Hell Bay by Sam Llewellyn, and The Old Success by Martha Grimes Annie Winifred Ellerman, daughter of the UK's wealthiest man Sir John Ellerman, took the name Bryher as her pen name in the early 20th century.