St Ives

The town and harbour with The Island in the background

This is our first trip away from home since our visit to Guernsey last September. We are staying in an excellent small hotel on the south side of the town, next to the bus station. There is a wonderful view over the Harbour. 

Smeeton's Pier, built in 1767-70 to replace a smaller medieval pier, is over on the right hand side and to its left is the green hill known as The Island - though actually just a headland.

Round to our right is the quiet Porthminster Beach.

 

We head into the town, collecting a map from the Library, and soon coming to the interesting Market House with its curved ends, located in the tiny Market Place. It is dated 1832.

To the right is the imposing church of St Ia. St Ia is said to be an Irish evangelist and preacher who came to Cornwall and was martyred by pagans. Papal approval for the construction of the church dates from 1410 and it was consecrated in 1434. The tall tower is very impressive, but the better view is to seaward where the nave and aisles are imposing.

St Ives is of course famous for its galleries and now we made our planned visit to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Gallery, once the artist's home. You go into a small building and emerge into the beautiful gardens with numerous modernist scupltures scattered across it.

We continued along Fore Street, the main street, to reach Norway Square where the austere church dates only from 1903-5. It was never completed and is now an art gallery.

We headed through a maze of small streets to emerge at the base of The Island and then climbed up to get a closer look at St Nicholas Chapel. The original small medieval chapel was demolished by the War Office - and then rebuilt again in 1911. The plaque on the right of the chapel comments that 1911 was the occasion of the Coronation of George V. The interior was restored in 1971, although the chapel was closed when we were there. (The uneven picture is accounted for people thoughtlessly leaning against the the left hand side of the chapel.)

We didn't make the final pilgrimage to the Tate St Ives at the back of Portmeor Beach as we had already done that when we were doing this section of the Coast Path in 2014.

Conditions: bright and sunny.

It was lovely to see more of the town than on our previous visit.