As the production of copper from the central mining district around Camborne and Redruth soared in the eighteenth century local mine investors and landlords were confronted by transport bottlenecks. It was becoming ever more difficult to import enough coal to feed the growing number of steam engines, or to export the copper ore quickly and … Continue reading Portreath harbour
Category: contemporary
St Ives transformed
St Ives looks likely to find itself in the news over the next three months as a global media circus descends on west Cornwall to cover the G7 summit. It’s unlikely many of the visitors will enquire after the town’s recent history. Let’s take the opportunity to have a quick peek at it before St … Continue reading St Ives transformed
Forenames and identity
St Peran didn't just leave his name in the landscape. On occasion, the name Piran or Perran is bestowed on male babies. However, this isn't some age-old tradition, surviving from the days of the saints. On the other hand, it's not entirely novel either. The forename Perran was being used in Perranzabuloe in the 1600s … Continue reading Forenames and identity
Cornwall, the G7 Summit and stereotyping
The news that Cornwall will be hosting this year's G7 Summit (pesky viruses permitting) opens up all sorts of opportunities to ‘showcase the Cornwall brand’. Swarms of journalists will descend from across the globe eager for copy. But will all they devour be the same stale old imagery of Cornwall as just a tourist destination? … Continue reading Cornwall, the G7 Summit and stereotyping
The railway and Cornish identity
Last week I summarised an article which called for the Church of England to take account of regional identities and specifically the Cornish identity. This week I review another article which takes as its subject the Cornish identity. This one assesses the ways in which the railway has contributed to that identity. (For a more … Continue reading The railway and Cornish identity
David Penhaligon
On the morning of December 22nd, 1986, Cornwall’s best-known politician of the late twentieth century, David Penhaligon, was killed in a car crash. The death of Penhaligon, 42 years old and Liberal MP for Truro since 1974, came as a huge shock. Penhaligon was the son of a caravan park owner in Truro. Educated at … Continue reading David Penhaligon
Cornwall: England’s last refuge?
These days, it seems you can’t scan the TV schedules without being confronted by programmes set in Cornwall. Just this week we have ‘Rick Stein’s Cornish Christmas’ on BBC. On Channel 4 there’s ‘Newquay: 24/7 party people’, while Channel 5 is showing ‘Cornwall’s most scenic railway journeys’. ‘Cornwall Air 999’ can be found on Really, … Continue reading Cornwall: England’s last refuge?
Cornwall is ‘almost an island’
The visitor to Brittany cannot fail to notice the number of presqu’îles, or ‘almost islands’ dotted around its coasts. These are usually peninsulas jutting into the sea with only a narrow strip joining them to the land. We have no equivalent term in the English language but the whole of Cornwall could be viewed as … Continue reading Cornwall is ‘almost an island’
Cornish Town Councils save local services!
With the UK Government and regional and local authorities recently at daggers drawn, devolution is in the news. It’s timely therefore to consider current relations between the different tiers of local government in Cornwall. A recent article by Jane Wills, Professor of Geography at Exeter University, Tremough, does exactly that. During the austerity decade of … Continue reading Cornish Town Councils save local services!
A year of Cornish studies resources
Time trundles remorselessly onwards. I was shocked to realise it’s been over a year now since I began adding two or three blogs a week to this website. Maybe it’s because people had nothing better to do during the covid lockdown but the number of visitors in 2020 is already almost double that of 2019, … Continue reading A year of Cornish studies resources
Cornish studies resources 