You have arrived. Ahead of you lies St Ives — a harbour full of boats, white cottages crowding the water's edge, beaches of fine pale sand, and over it all a quality of light so clear and luminous that it drew a whole colony of artists to this far corner of Cornwall. This is one of the loveliest towns on the entire coast.
St Ives began as a fishing port, and pilchards were its fortune. These small, oily fish arrived off the coast in vast summer shoals, and catching them was the whole rhythm of the town's year.
For centuries, lookouts called huers watched from the cliffs for the tell-tale red stain of a shoal in the bay, then raised the cry — the "hue" that gives them their name — that sent the boats racing out to trap the fish in great seine nets. The catch was salted and pressed in the cellars of the old town and shipped as far as the Mediterranean.
The stone harbour pier at the heart of the town was designed in the 1760s by the great engineer John Smeaton, whose lighthouses and harbours ring the coast of Britain. But from the late nineteenth century a new kind of visitor arrived — painters, chasing that extraordinary light.
Whistler and Sickert came early; later the town became a crucible of British modern art, home to Ben Nicholson, the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, and the untutored fisherman-painter Alfred Wallis. In 1993 Tate St Ives opened above Porthmeor Beach, sealing the town's place in the story of art.
Now, let me point out some things to look for. First, the harbour itself — best at high tide and golden hour, when the water fills and the boats sit backed by that wall of white cottages. Second, wander into Downalong, the old fishing quarter, a maze of narrow lanes and granite cottages leaning together, where the fishing families once lived packed tight above their cellars.
Third, walk out onto the headland the locals simply call the Island, crowned by the tiny, ancient St Nicholas Chapel — a superb spot to watch the sea, and to look for seals and passing seabirds. Fourth, seek out the two temples of art: Tate St Ives above the surf of Porthmeor, and, a short walk away, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, where her carved forms stand exactly where she left them.
And fifth, choose a beach — Porthmeor for the surf, sheltered Porthminster, or the calm harbour sand — and stand for a moment in that famous light.
Here is a story to carry with you. Alfred Wallis was an old fisherman and marine-store dealer who, in his seventies and grieving his wife, began to paint — on scraps of card, with ship's paint, boats and harbours remembered from a life at sea. He had no training and no interest in the rules.
One day in 1928 two visiting artists, Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood, glanced through his open door and saw those raw, radiant little pictures. They were astonished. Wallis died poor, but his vision helped shape modern British painting, and today his work hangs in national collections. The lesson of St Ives, in a way, is his: that this light falls on everyone alike, and you never know who will learn to see by it.
From here the South West Coast Path continues west, out of the town and onto the wild, magnificent cliffs of Penwith — some of the most rugged and beautiful walking in all of Cornwall lies just ahead. But for now, you have earned a pause. Wander the harbour, follow the lanes of Downalong, and let the light do its work. Watch the tides on the open beaches as you go. Walk safe.
