M is for Museums and Art Galleries …

Where do I start, or more importantly where do you start … there’s lots to offer in Cornwall apart from the stunning landscape of the South Coast Cornish Riviera, or the craggy cliffs, golden beaches, windswept moors, ancient lichen covered woodland, hidden valleys and secret coves …

Tate St Ives, taken from St Ives

So I have taken the easy route and will just briefly set out museums frequently mentioned on the web per Google – where else!  Just type in "Cornish Museums" and a gallery at the top of the Google page comes up.  But of course the post is likely to be longish …. but I’ve included links to their overview sites … and I've added a few more?!

Falmouth Harbour, Maritime Museum
and Pendennis Castle in background

National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth – which has collaborative links with Greenwich Museum, London.   It manages the National Small Boat Collection, and sets out Cornwall’s maritime history … Cornish fish, trading, boat building, wrecks and emigration.

NilaBose of Madly in Verse mentioned the pilchard film she had seen as very interesting when she visited the Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

Truro Museum

Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro – it is the leading museum of Cornish Culture: its exhibits include minerals, an unwrapped mummy and objects relating to Cornwall’s unique culture.   

Specific collections are Fine Art from the Newlyn School of painting and others; Philip Rashleigh’s of Cornish minerals and there’s The Courtney Library and Archive … it has lots of Cornish papers et al .. and specialises in family history and local history.

Cables flowing out of Porthcurno

Porthcurno Telegraph Museum celebrates the 19^th C connection to the rest of the world via submarine cables … across the Atlantic in 1866, to Australia in 1872 and across the Pacific in 1902.  The tunnels used in WW2 have been converted to include the working research station, and the museum …

An example of  a 19th Waterwheel
and set of Stamps at Geevor

Geevor Tin Mine, a few miles north of Botallack on the coast road to St Ives.  It is a living history of a working tin mine: it is an Anchor Point of The European Route of Industrial Heritage.  (It has recent photos and links re the 2015 BBC Poldark series).

Museum of Witchcraft

Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle … dedicated to European witchcraft and magic:  it houses exhibits devoted to folk magic, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry and Wicca … it is interesting to find out why it is in Cornwall …

The Hold House, Port Mear Square by
Alfred Wallis - fisherman then naive
artist but worth looking at his site

Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives – a regional Tate Gallery exhibiting works by modern British artists.

It is worth checking out Alfred Wallis at the link I give under the picture ... 

Hepworth ... I add a note at the end re Hepworth and Cornwall

Hepworth's tools on display

The Tate manages the Barbara Hepworth Museum and SculptureGarden.

The Rain It Raineth - by Norman Garstin at the Penlee
(this is my favourite art work of Penzance Promenade -
where I walked so often with my mother)

Penlee House – a museum and art gallery located in Penzance home to many paintings by members of the Newlyn School, including Stanhope Forbes, Norman Garstin, Walter Langley and Lamorna Birch.  

The Newlyn Art Gallery is now dedicated to modern artists, most of the Newlyn School’s art is at the Penlee.

Wayside Folk Museum - milling and bread making

Wayside Folk Museum, Zennor (just west of St Ives) is a private museum covering every aspect of life in Zennor and the surrounding district from 3,000BC to the 1930s.  It looks a delight waiting to be visited … 

Cornish Mines and Engines Museum, run by the National Trust, Poole, in the Camborne-Redruth mining area.  Here’s a chance to delve deeper in to Cornish mining … it is at the heart of the Cornish Mining World Heritage site.

Poldark Museum

Poldark Tin Mine Museum, Wendron Valley, near Helston ... a working and family oriented showcase ... with some early tin stamps, gardens that belie its industrial heritage ... 

Charlestown Harbour

A perfectly preserved Georgian Harbour at Charlestown, near St Austell ... stood in for 18th century Truro in the Poldark series ...

c/o  Cornwall on line 

Church Cove, at Gunwalloe on the Lizard peninsula was used for Poldark's night-time scenes of smuggling and shipwrecks ... 

Launceston town square

Lawrence House Museum, Launceston – described by John Betjeman as having the most perfect collection of 18^th C townhouses in Cornwall.  

It is a National Trust property and has many exhibits … toys, costumes, herbarium, a Silver Penny made locally in William the Conqueror’s time, a Victorian kitchen .. and many other collections.

Falmouth Art Gallery has one of the leading art collections in Cornwall featuring old masters, major Victorian artists, British and French Impressionists, leading surrealists and maritime artists, children’s book illustrators, automata, contemporary painters and printmakers. 

Liskeard Town Centre - a lovely little town
with hidden gems

Liskeard and District Museum reminds us of an ancient Cornish town, with history interweaving with local mining and agriculture.

It is also where Emily Hobhouse came from … and Jenny has written a new book about World War 1 … I somehow need to decide how to write some posts about Emily.  

Jenny's new book - I'm half way
through reading it

The Liskeard Museum reminds us of the work Emily did for the displaced women, children and captured Africans in the Boer War, and also when World War 1 started … Emily attempted to broker peace, and helped found the Save the Childrens Fund.  She has largely been forgotten about .. but Jenny (my mother’s cousin) has Emily’s papers and is making sure Emily has due recognition.

Alfred Wallis'  grave in
St Ives, decorated  in the
style of his paintings.

Many of the towns have local museums reflective of the traditions, the history, the Saints and Holy Wells pertinent to the area …

Thankfully today we can check up on the museums near our destinations … and volunteers and experts have done much to open our eyes should we wish to learn …

I feel I need to mention St Michael's Mount as a place to visit ... more tomorrow ... but it is an iconic island accessible by causeway ... 

I have therefore courtesy of Google let you know about a few .. but there are plenty of others … and most of the ones I’ve listed are set in the Penwith area (the west) of the county.

That is M for Museums, Memories, Memorials, Magnificent art works, Magnaminous Munificence ... from Aspects of British Cornish ... 

Note from The Quarterly about Barbara Hepworth and her move (in 1939) and subsequent stay in St Ives ... "She was astounded by the light and qualities of the landscape, and found it impossible to leave.

She allowed her work to be influenced by her milieu, creating undulating, cavernous forms that echoed the cave formations along the Cornish coast.

The countryside too permeated her way of thinking too, and she became inspired not only by the landscape and life of the Cornwall of her day, but also by its ancient landforms and prehistoric monuments, such as the Men-an-Tol standing stone monument" (between St Ives and Penzance).

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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