St
Ives ( ) is a seaside town,
civil parish and port in Cornwall
, England
, United Kingdom
. The town lies north of Penzance
and west of
Camborne
on the coast
of the Celtic
Sea
. In former times it was commercially
dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a
shift in commercial emphasis and the town is now primarily a
holiday resort. St Ives was
incorporated by Royal Charter in 1639. St Ives has become renowned
for its number of artists. It was named best seaside town of 2007
by the
Guardian newspaper.
History
Early history
John Payne memorial, St Ives
The origin of St Ives is attributed in legend to the arrival of the
Irish Saint
Ia of Cornwall, in the
5th century. The parish church in St Ives still bears the name of
this saint, and the name St Ives itself derives from it.
The town was the site of a particularly notable atrocity during the
Prayer Book rebellion of 1549.
The English
Provost Marshal
(
Anthony Kingston) came to St Ives
and invited the
portreeve, John Payne, to
lunch at an inn. He asked the portreeve to have the
gallows erected during the course of the lunch.
Afterwards the portreeve and the Provost Marshal walked down to the
gallows; the Provost Marshal then ordered the portreeve to mount
the gallows. The portreeve was then
hanged
for being a "busy rebel".
Later history
From medieval times fishing was important at St Ives; it was the
most important fishing port on the north coast. In the decade
1747-1756 the total number of pilchards dispatched from the four
principal Cornish ports of Falmouth, Fowey, Penzance and St Ives
averaged 30,000 hogsheads annually (making a total of 900 million
fish). Much greater catches were achieved in 1790 and 1796. In 1847
the exports of pilchards from Cornwall amounted to 40,883 hogsheads
or 122 million fish while the greatest number ever taken in one
seine was 5,600 hogsheads at St Ives in 1868.
Kenneth Hamilton Jenkin describes how the St Ives fisherman
strictly observed Sunday as a day of rest. St Ives was a very busy
fishing port and seining the usual method of fishing there. Seining
was carried on by a set of three boats of different sizes, the
largest two carrying seine nets of different sizes. The total
number of crew was 17 or 18. However this came to an end in 1924.
The bulk of the catch was exported to Italy: for example in 1830
6,400 hogsheads were sent to Mediterranean ports. From 1829-38 the
yearly average for this trade was 9,000 hogsheads.
Modern St
Ives came with the railway in 1877, the St Ives Bay branch line from St Erth
, part of the
Great Western Railway.
With it came a new generation of Victorian seaside holidaymakers.
Much of the town was built during the latter part of the 19th
century. The railway, which winds along the cliffs and bays,
survived the
Beeching axe and has
become a tourist attraction itself.
In 1999, the town was the first landfall of the
Solar eclipse of August 11,
1999. A live BBC programme with
Patrick Moore was clouded out and the eclipse
was missed.
St Ives hit the national headlines on 28 July 2007, following a
suspected sighting of a
Great White
Shark. The Chairman of the Shark Trust, Mr Pierce, could not
rule out the possibility that this was a genuine sighting after
watching video footage of the shark. However, he added that it
could also have been either a Mako or a
Porbeagle shark. Both are predatory sharks.
Coastguards dismissed the claims as "scaremongering" when
questioned by reporters.
Politics and administration
Prior to 1974, the St Ives Borough Council was the principal local
authority for what now forms the civil parish of St Ives. Since the
reform of English local government in 1974, St Ives has elected a
town council, St Ives Town Council.
The principal local authority functions
for St Ives were undertaken by Penwith
District
Council and the Cornwall County
Council. From 1 April 2009 Penwith and the other five
Cornish district councils were replaced by a unified council,
Cornwall Council.
Culture
Art
St Ives harbour and the sea
beyond
In 1928, the
Cornish artist
Alfred Wallis and his friends
Ben Nicholson and
Christopher Wood met at
St Ives and laid the foundation for the artists' colony of today.
In 1939, Ben Nicholson,
Barbara
Hepworth and
Naum Gabo settled in St
Ives, attracted by its quiet beauty.
In 1993, a branch of
the Tate
Gallery
, the Tate St
Ives
, opened here. The Tate also looks
after the Barbara
Hepworth Museum
and her sculpture
garden. It was the wish of the late sculptor to leave
her work on public display in perpetuity.
The town also
attracted artists from overseas, such as Piet Mondrian, who let the landscape influence
their work, and Maurice Sumray, who
became a successful and respected contributor to the St Ives art
scene when he moved to the town from London
in
1968.
Prior to the 1940s the majority of artists in St Ives and elsewhere
in West Cornwall belonged to the St Ives Society of Artists;
however events in the late 1940s led to a growing dispute between
the
abstract and
figurative artists within the group. In 1948
the abstract faction broke away from the St Ives Society, forming
the
Penwith Society of
Artists led by
Barbara Hepworth
and
Ben Nicholson.
The studio pottery
Troika was set up
in St Ives in 1963.
Festivals
Traditional festivals
St Ives is home to three celebrations of interest.
John Knill, a former Mayor of St Ives,
constructed the Knill Steeple, a granite monument overlooking the
town. In 1797, Knill laid down instructions for the celebration of
the Knill Ceremony, which was to take place every five years on 25
July (St James's Day). The ceremony itself involves the Mayor of St
Ives, a customs officer, and a vicar; they should be accompanied by
two widows and 10 girls who should be the "daughters of fishermen,
tinners, or seamen".
A second celebration, of perhaps greater antiquity, is St Ives
Feast, a celebration of the founding of St Ives by St Ia, which
takes place on the Sunday and Monday nearest to 3 February each
year. It includes a civic procession to Venton Ia, the well of St
Ia, and other associated activities.
It is most notable as
one of the two surviving examples of Cornish Hurling (in a gentler format than
its other manifestation at St Columb Major
).
A third festival is the St Ives May Day, which is a modern revival
of
May Day
customs that were at one time common throughout the west of
Cornwall.
The St Ives September Festival
There is also the now famous
St Ives September
Festival. In 2008 this Festival celebrated its 30th
anniversary on 6–20 September. The St Ives September Festival is
one of the longest running and widest ranging Festivals of the Arts
in the UK. It lasts 15 days and includes a range of arts from Music
(including Folk, Jazz, Rock, Classical & World) to Poetry,
Film, Talks and Books. It was founded in 1978 as a joint venture by
a group of local entrepeneurs and the nearby International
Musicians Seminar. The first Festival featured Folk and Jazz music
Poetry, Film, Talks and Chamber Music. Many of the local artists in
the town open up their private studios to allow visitors to see
exactly how their art is produced. There is free music in many pubs
in the town almost every night, as well as well-attended concerts.
The Festival attracts thousands of visitors from all over the
world.
St Ives has a 500 seat theatre which hosts some of the September
Festival events.
In literature and popular culture
St Ives is well known from the
nursery
rhyme and
riddle "
As I was going to St Ives",
although it is not clear whether the rhyme refers to the Cornish
town or one of
several other
places called St Ives around the country.
St Ives also figures in Virginia Woolf's reflections contained in
"Sketch of the Past", from
Moments of Being:
...I could fill pages remembering one thing after
another. All together made the summer at St. Ives the best
beginning to life imaginable.
The Cornish language poet Mick Paynter
is resident in St Ives.
The Discovery Travel and
Living programme Beach Café is filmed in St Ives,
featuring Australian chef Michael Smith.
Transport
Rail
St Ives
railway station
is linked to the Paddington
to Penzance main rail
route via the St Ives branch line
which runs frequent services from St Erth
station
. The line was opened in 1877 by the St Ives
branch railway, but became part of the Great Western Railway in
1878. A
Park-and-Ride facility for visitors to
St Ives runs from Lelant Saltings railway
station
, which was opened on 27 May
1978 specifically for this purpose.
The line
also links the town to nearby Carbis Bay
and Lelant
.
Coach
The town
also has regular services by National Express Coach from London
Victoria
, Heathrow
and other places in Britain. Buses also connect St
Ives to nearby towns and villages, such as Zennor, Penzance and St Just
.
Air
The
nearest airports to St Ives are Newquay
and Plymouth
. Private jets, charters and helicopters are
served by Perranporth airfield
.
Twinning
The harbour and the lifeboat
See also
References
- Victoria History of Cornwall, vol. I, p. 584
- Jenkin (1932) Cornish Seafarers; chapter on
fishing
- "A Sketch of the Past," from Moments of Being. New
York: Harcourt, 1985, pp. 128 ff.
Further reading
- Paynter, William Old St Ives: the reminiscences of William
Paynter; [edited] by S. Winifred Paynter. St. Ives: James
Lanham
External links
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