Open Day, Saturday 16 June 2018 10 am to 3 pm: Getting There and Back, transporting goods and people.

This Open Day looks at the role of transport in enabling business to progress.

How did the fish that was landed get to people’s tables?
‘From Luggers to Jousters’ shows the fish being transported from the Luggers to the beach by Bummers (Bumboats), where the jousters, fishwives and dealers would be waiting: the fishwives to load their cawls and for the traders to take the fish to Penzance Station by horse and cart.
Later, fleets lorries transported fish from the fish market to far-away destinations .

How did the stone from the Quarry get to the stone ships on the South Pier? ‘From Quarry to Ship’ tells the story of the first engines used to transport the granite from the quarry on a narrow-gauge railway to the South Pier where the stone was loaded onto the Stone boats.

How did Newlyners get to Lamorna? ‘The Good Friday walk’ shows the routes that could be taken, and different people tell the stories of their walks. Getting about in Lamorna was no easy matter but Morgan Hosking had a car in the 1930s and there was even a garage in Lamorna called the Ark Garage. Both the old post office and the Wink had parking spaces where people could bring their cars.

Who used the harbour during the war years, 1939-1945? The coal hulk Cretehill got there before the war but she never got back as she was sunk in the harbour by a German Bomb. Did you know that in June 1940 some boat registrations changed? Fishing boats commandeered by the Admiralty became HMS; Belgian boats, instead of home port (O for Ostend), became B with a new number and French boats, instead of Au for Audierne or D for Douarnenez became F or FF for Free French. All reregistered to fish here.

Getting there could never be complete without the bus, and it was a Newlyn man, John Matthews ‘Jack’ Hitchens who ran the bus from Mousehole to Penzance. The bus was garaged at Tolcarne in a building next to the old bridge which had previously housed the horse drawn ‘busses’ that took people to Penzance. More latterly (but now no longer there) was Western National Bus Station at Wherrytown.

There will be an extra display board ‘Getting there on foot’ devoted to Stanhope Forbes account of first coming to Newlyn and the paintings that he subsequently made showing the places he describes in his walk.

As usual we have some amazing films to show. They include a promotional film of GWR from the 1930s and a film made by a passenger on a vintage National Western Bus. The Mousehole Archive will have a table and our family expert will be available to help with family searches.

Do download the poster:

June 2018 poster

A Date for your Diary:

We hope to raise money for the archive at a charity event sponsored by the Co-op at Wherry Town. On Friday 22 June 2018 we will have a stall with a tombola and cakes. Please come along and support the event.