Visit West Cornwall

St. Ives enters recorded history with the arrival of St. Ia or Hya, the Irish princess who introduced Christianity to this area in the 5th Century.

The legend tells how St. Ia, a Virgin Saint of noble birth went to the seashore to depart for Cornwall from her native Ireland along with other Saints. Finding that they had gone without her, fearing that she was too young for such a hazardous journey, she was grief stricken and began to pray.

As she prayed she noticed a little leaf floating on the water and touched it with a rod to see if it would sink. Lo, as she looked it grew bigger and bigger. She saw that God sent it to her and, trusting to Him, she embarked upon the leaf and was straightaway wafted across the Channel, reaching her destination before the others.

The legend goes on to say that she founded an oratory in a clearing of a wood on the site of the existing Parish Church that is dedicated to her.

Interestingly, during construction of the new lifeboat station adjacent to the Parish Church, the contractors excavated a peat bog, which is surprising when one considers the excavations were in St. Ives Harbour.

In 1549 during the Prayer Book Revolution the Provost Marshall came to St. Ives and invited the Mayor, Mr John Payne, to lunch at the old George and Dragon. He asked the Mayor to have the gallows erected during lunch. After lunch the Mayor and the Provost Marshall walked down to the gallows, the Provost Marshall ordered the Mayor to get up on the gallows whereupon the Mayor was hanged for being a Roman Catholic.

The importance of the town grew with the development of the Harbour and many ships plied between St. Ives and every part of the world. Arthur Guinness, the brewer, used to sell beer to a Captain Sampson who brought the beer back as deck cargo and sold draught Guinness to his regulars in his pub on Skidden Hill, now a hotel.

The Hain Shipping Company that had its headquarters in St. Ives was a large shipping company who later combined with the Norge Company and others to become P&O.

The Tin Industry also created its fair share of shipping business which no doubt led to the harbour being listed in 1830 as 'A Most Important Harbour'.

Many famous people have lived in St. Ives from time to time; Turner, Whistler, Henry Moore, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Bernard Leach and Virginia Woolf. Henry Irving lived in the nearby village of Halsetown. These are just a few of the famous people who found the magic that is St. Ives.

Knill Steeple

In 1782 John Knill, a Customs Officer, erected a mausoleum on Worvas Hill. He had intended to be buried there, as he 'abhorred the practice of burial within the body of the Church' that was prevalent at the time and the churchyard already overcrowded.

However, owing to difficulties of consecration this idea had to be abandoned and upon his death at Gray's Inn Square on March 29th 1811 he was subsequently buried at St. Andrews Church, Holborn.

Designed in 1779 by the architect John Wood, Knill Steeple is a triangular pyramid of hewn granite, 50ft high, containing within its base a cavity large enough for a single interment. Rising in courses of cut blocks of granite the pyramid is capped with metal and provided with a lightning conductor. An arch in the base gives access to the cavity but this has always been sealed up except during the memorial ceremony. A low guard wall of granite was constructed in 1829 to protect the foundations. On one face is carved the word 'Resurgam', with the Coat of Arms and Motto (Nil Desperandum) of John Knill. The second face bears the inscription 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' while the third side is inscribed 'Johannes Knill 1782'.

It was John Knill's wish to be remembered by the people of St. Ives for whom he held a real affection so every five years on St. James's Day, July 25th a strange ritual is performed in the town. The first ceremony took place in 1801 and Knill was in attendance to prance with the participants who dressed in their white ribbons and uniforms of office to dance around the mausoleum to the old Cornish 'Furry Dance' tune before singing the Old Hundredth psalm.

Carried out even during the war years, this Quinquennial celebration had its 200th Anniversary in the year 2001.

Heading the Knill Trust was the Worshipful Mayor and Standard of the Mace, the Vicar of St. Ives and the Customs Officer, together with the Master of Ceremonies and The Fiddler who escorted the two widows and ten maidens (of ten years old at most) dressed in white.

The bizarre congregation climb to the top or Worvas Hill to dance around the steeple observed by dozens of local townspeople.

There is more to this Customs Officer and Mayor of St. Ives who left the town to take a post as Customs Officer in the West Indies where, rumour has it, he made a small fortune. There are extensive views of the area of Penwith from Worvas Hill and it is written that he possibly used the monument to send signals out to sea, be it for smuggling or spying.

Percy Lane Oliver OBE (1878-1944)

Percy Lane Oliver was born on April 11th 1878 at the home of his grandparents, Paul and Marjorie Curnow, in Fish Street, St. Ives. In 1921 when he was working in London as Secretary of the Camberwell Division of the British Red Cross, he and a few Red Cross colleagues responded to an urgent request from the nearby King's College Hospital for a blood donor. One of the group became the hospital's first donor to give blood as a volunteer without financial reward. Oliver's experience on that occasion led him to the concept of voluntary blood donor panels and the system he then devised.

He worked tirelessly on the system for the rest of his life and was admired and copied in countries around the world. His system is now incorporated into our National Health Service through the National Blood Authority.

Oliver was awarded the OBE for his work in hospitals and among refugees in the First World War but during his lifetime he received no public recognition of all the pioneering work he did in the field of blood transfusion.

Oliver died in 1944 and it was not until 1972 that any public reminder of his contribution to modern medicine was forthcoming. It came in the form of a plaque placed in the Haematology Department of King's College Hospital. In 1979 the Greater London Council attached one of their 'Blue Plaques' to the house in South London where Oliver and his family carried on the administration of the voluntary service, and in 1992, with the co-operation of St. Ives Town Council an appropriate plaque was provided in the newly opened Stennack Surgery in St. Ives.

King's College Hospital is now part of the King's Healthcare NHS Trust and to mark the 75th Anniversary of that first voluntary blood donation and the start of Oliver's work, the Trust felt that something more tangible than a plaque was needed. It was decided that one of the hospital's new wards should be named after him. This was done on Thursday December 12th when a plaque referring to Oliver's work, was unveiled in the Oliver Ward.

It is hoped that patients who receive treatment in the Oliver Ward may be encouraged to become volunteer blood donors that, in itself, would be a tribute to his work.

Excerpt taken from St. Ives Times & Echo, 6th December 1991 - Copyright Tom Richards

Commando Mountain Warfare Centre

During a period when the Germans controlled the coastline from Norway to Spain, Winston Churchill ordered the transfer of the Commando Mountain Training Centre, based in the Cairngorms, Scotland, to St. Ives, Cornwall.

This may have come as a pleasant exchange to the troops who had been living in 8-man tents flown in helicopters from Lossiemouth to their base 4,000ft high in the Cairngorms where they survived freezing conditions from December to March building snow holes and ice caves.

Churchill's aim was to attack the Channel Islands and France, therefore the training was to be advanced from mountain warfare to cliff climbing, handling canoes and mud sledges, casualty evacuation in preparation for 'D' Day, and fast movement across country with full fighting kit.

Jim Smith, who still resides in St. Ives, remembers the day he disembarked the train at St. Erth station and took that wonderful scenic journey on the train around the coast to St. Ives.
No one was going to complain about this transfer.
Their unit was based in small Nissen huts at the end of Porthminster Beach, permanent staff and instructors were billeted with St. Ives landladies, many of whom had attractive daughters, this being the grounds of many of the soldiers ultimately making their homes in Cornwall.

Commando Mountain Training Centre produced some fine mountaineers, well known in the climbing world and some first class commando soldiers, it was a known fact that senior officers considered them the best of commando soldiers.

Troops stationed in Falmouth but trained near St. Ives carried out the most daring raid of the war, The St. Nazaire Raid, the important port of St. Nazaire was destroyed but there were many casualties on both sides. The chief instructor, Captain Joe Barry, became a legend in his life, well loved by his own troops. Although Captain Barry did not reside in Cornwall, when he passed away in 2000 his ashes were brought back to the West Country and cast along the cliffs of Sennen Cove.

At the end of the Second World War the last landing was to be on Singapore and Malaya, led by the 3rd Commando Brigade and the 2 Para. The unit was closed down towards the end of 1949 before being amalgamated into the Commando School of the Royal Marines at Bickleigh.

Forty or so years later, in the Falkland Islands, the 2 Para and the 3rd Commando Brigade were to be the first to land on the islands. In the Gulf and recently in Afghanistan the fighting was led by the same task forces, most of them trained in Mountain Warfare.

Feast Day

Feast Day always falls on the first Monday after February 3rd, the anniversary of the consecration of the Parish Church of St., Eia in 1434. Lelant Feast is on February 2nd and in earlier times it was the custom for St. Ives to play Lelant in the famous 'Hurling' of the silver ball, a kind of naturalistic rugby march, retained by other notable towns like St. Columb near Newquay.

St. Ives and Lelant Parish Churches were the respective goals sought by opposing teams but eventually the custom was revised when St. Ives town population outnumbered Lelant's. It then became a beach event played on the foreshore. Today, hurling the silver ball continues and although in less extended form, mainly contained within the town boundaries, it is still a robust and exciting event.

A tradition revived by the Old Cornwall Society is the Midsummer Eve Bonfire when a Lady of the Flowers casts herbs into a hilltop blaze and prayers are said in the Cornish Language. It recalls the old Celtic ceremony of the Belthane Fires that the early church Christianised but was moved from May to mid-summer.

Guise Dancing or 'Guising' is another ancient and colourful custom that has its roots deep in our Celtic past. It involves local young people dressing up in a number of disguises and running in good-natured riot. This tradition has also moved along the calendar with time and although most commonly associated with the Christmas period, 'Guisers' can often be seen in the Feast Day parade.

These days there are plenty of 'Guisers' to be seen in St. Ives on New Year's Eve when the town and an increasing number of visitors turn out in Fancy Dress to gather in the streets and on the harbour to welcome in the New Year.

Fair Mo is a less rowdy tradition, celebrated just before Christmas. This ancient 'pig fair' reflects the long-standing custom of keeping pigs in virtually every Downlong yard. Today local ladies dress in traditional costumes and hold their fair, or market, in the Guildhall.

Model Boat sailing on Consols Pool at the top of the Stennack on the outskirts of St. Ives each Good Friday is a great tradition which has been sustained through its close seafaring connections when seagoing folk launched miniature boats to sea before the onset of Summer as a placating gesture to the Gods of the Storm.