Archive pictures: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion, Cornwall and Devon in August 2005 – fifty photos

Here’s a set of photos taken around Cornwall and Devon some fifteen years ago, on the summer of 2005.

Above: deck chairs and St Ives harbour. 

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

The view from the train as it hurtles along the seafront by Dawlish is spectacular.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Equally stunning is Brunel’s Royal Albert Bridge, which spans the River Tamar to link Plymouth in Devon with Saltash in Cornwall.

Its unique design consists of two 455-foot (138.7 m) lenticular iron trusses 100 feet (30.5 m) above the water, with conventional plate-girder approach spans., giving it a total length of 2,187.5 feet (666.8 m).

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

View from the bridge.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

St Erth is easily one  one of my favourite railway stations in the UK.

The Grade II listed station is situated on the London Paddington to Plymouth mainline and hosts the junction for the St Ives Bay Line to St Ives.

Rail traffic is still controlled by Victorian-era semaphore signalling, controlled by the 1899 signal box seen in the distance.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Find out more about the station in this detailed photo feature: St Erth railway station.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Old fashioned road sign.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

St Ives bay.

Junior fishermen.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Taking in the view.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

St Ives beach at dusk.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Sky and sand.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

The road to Portreath, Cornwall.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Surfers galore, Porthmeor Beach.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

King Canute, Cornwall style.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

St Ives is a beautiful town but it can become horrendously busy in the holiday season.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Taking a dip.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Godrevy Lighthouse was built in 1858–1859 and stands on Godrevy Island in St Ives Bay.

Situated near the small village of Gwithian, the white lighthouse proved the inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s, ‘To The Lighthouse’ novel.

Built on a rocky island, the 86ft high octagonal tower is made of rubble stone bedded in mortar, and the lighthouse has been operating since March 1859, being automated in 1934.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Stunning beaches seen from the St Ives branch line train.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Portreath beach. The historical harbour of Portreath started life in 1760 as an outlet for the mining industry, with its ‘Welsh Fleet’ regularly exporting rich copper ore destined for the smelting furnaces of Swansea.

The ships then returned laden with Welsh coal for the steam-powered beam engines used in the local tin and copper mines.

Sadly, Portreath’s days of greatness are long over, and the village has returned to a quiet life with a splendid beach and a rather tatty offering of tourist facilities.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

St Ives at high tide.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

The St Ives museum was a lo-tech wonder.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

The busy Sloop Inn which faces St Ives harbour.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Gravestones overlooking the sea at St Ives.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Accessible only at low tide, St Michael’s Mount is a former Benedictine Priory and Castle which was involved in both the Wars of the Roses and the Cornish Rebellion against Edward VI.

It’s now owned by the National Trust.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

This Art Deco sea pool known as Jubilee Pool in Penzance originally opened in May 1935, the year of King George V’s Silver Jubilee.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Godrevy lighthouse through the mist.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

The small chapel on St Ives Head.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cycling across the Cornish moors as the mist dscends.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Old stone milepost near Zennor.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

We took a sizeable rainy detour in a failed quest to find the famous Men-an-tol stones, near the old Ding Dong mine.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Windbreaks on a busy Porthminster Beach.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Save Our Fish, Newlyn. Illuminated at Christmas, this sign highlights the fears of the local community as over-fishing and EU Quotas have decimated Newlyn’s once thriving fishing industry.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Donations box for Mousehole’s Harbour Lights.

Taking its name from the small gap in the harbour wall that looks like a mouse hole, the small fishing village is pronounced, ‘Mowzel.’

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Mousehole’s small harbour.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Harbour views.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Artist at work.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Something odd and Cornish going on here.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

All alone on the beach.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Headless telescope.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Lifeboat takes to the sea.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

The site of St Ives once-grand railway station.

Cornwall archive photos: St Ives, Mousehole, Marazion and more - August 2005

Opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 June 1877 as the terminus of a 4.5 mile branch line from St Erth, the station once had double track and a long sweeping single platform that could accommodate two trains at the same time. It’s now a single track siding from St Erth, listed as one of the most picturesque railways in England.

See feature here: St Ives railway station: then and now

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