Adventure Island Books: Setting

The Adventure Island books are set on the small island of Castle Key.

Castle Key would be somewhere around here
map: http://www.freeworldmaps.net/europe/united-kingdom/map.html

Castle Key is a fictional island. But if it did exist it would be off the south coast of Cornwall, near Land's End - where the red arrow is pointing in this map.

Castle Key is about 270 miles from London, 280 miles from Manchester and 420 miles from Edinburgh. These distances are "as the crow flies." That means in a straight line. If you had to follow the roads, it would be a bit farther.

Castle Key island is about five miles across from East to West and about four miles from North to South. It is approximately rectangular, which means that its area is about twenty square miles (4 x 5).

I remember going to Cornwall for lovely holidays when I was a child, and my sister and her family lived there for many years, which is why I chose it as the setting for Adventure Island.

Here is my original sketch of the island. Luckily this scruffy effort doesn't appear in the books! The beautiful map that you see at the beginning of every Adventure Island book was drawn by the brilliant illustrator, Leo Hartas.

Now for the real map! You might noticed that the map changes slightly throughougt the series. More and more locations are added as they feature in the different mysteries. Below is the final version that you see from Book 10 to 14.