Cornwall's Hidden History Blog
When the artist J. M. W. Turner was walking between the villages of Mousehole and Paul in the summer of 1811 he paused for just long enough to make a rough pencil sketch of a granite monument that had caught his eye beside the road. The monument had been placed there some eighteen years earlier […]
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If you had happened to walk out on to St Catherine’s Point from the town of Fowey in the winter of 1866 a strange scene would have greeted you. Above the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks below you would have heard a chink of metal on stone and the quiet hum of […]
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How important is public art to community and society? What is it worth and can we really put a price on it? Should we be measuring the value of art in pounds or is its worth something unquantifiable? These seem to have been the sort of questions that were being asked back in 1965 when […]
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Ann Boswell, better known as Granny Boswell, is one of Cornwall’s best known characters and an important figure for many in the gypsy community but who was the real woman who has inspired so much affection, so many stories and has even been depicted in one of the biggest TV shows of the past decade?! […]
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“Max Barrett started life as the wild boy of Penzance and ended as the wild man of sculpting.” – Annie Gurton, The Independent, June 1997 If there is one thing I love it is discovering something hidden in plain sight! The people, places and objects that have been forgotten or overlooked. That is not to […]
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In the summer of 2017 I interviewed Dr E. Emma Carlyon about her role as County Coroner for My Cornwall magazine. It was the first professional interview that I had ever done but she put me completely at ease. Although I only met her that once I still remember how struck I was by her […]
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There are certain members of our community who are supposed to be beyond reproach. Individuals that we hold in higher esteem, who are meant to set the standard for the rest of us – the village constable or doctor perhaps and of course, the local vicar. But experience should have taught us that these individuals […]
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The late Victorian period in Britain seems to have been a time when strange fads and peculiar crazes were particularly popular. Beyond the well known fashion for smaller and smaller waists there were fasting crazes which saw some young women claiming that they never ate anything . . . at all . . . ever, […]
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Some stories just come to you like a gift. A brightly wrapped present with a big bow on top! The story of Daisy is one of those wonderful gifts, especially since she, the hero of this tale, was, well, an alligator who ‘liked’ wearing a ribbon round her neck! So, how exactly did Daisy the […]
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A few years ago I was contacted by a Cornish gypsy family who wanted to tell me the story of their great-grandmother, Janet Isaac. I met them for a cup of tea and a chat and to my surprise and joy a whole other world, a wonderfully fascinating and unfamiliar part of our Cornish heritage, […]
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