The Pixie Cabin

This is a photo from Old Newlyn. The Pixie Cabin was down a short alleyway tucked between Barclays Bank and a building one door away, Job Morris’s vegetable shop (now the Newlyn pharmacy). The rear of the Pixie Cabin sat on the banks of the River Coombe where children played among the rocks.

Festooned with lush greenery, the café was an oasis for teenagers.  It was part of Newlyn’s ‘social triangle’ where teenagers hung out. Jelberts ice cream shop (when it was located in the Strand) and Jewell’s on the corner advertising chicken and chips as well as fish and chips, were the other parts of the triangle. 

Many youngsters had summer jobs at the Pixie. Customers included the painter ‘Buck’ Taylor, and the artists, Charles Breaker and Eric Alfred Hiller.

Between 1950 and 1960, the lease for Pixie Cabin was held by the Hope family.  In 1959 17-year-old Ina Hope took over, and in the same year, met her future husband, one of the Penzance Grammar School regulars, Barry Lambe.  (Ina and Barry were founder members of the Lamorna Society).

For more see Anne Forrest’s essay ‘The Pixie Cabin, The Strand, Newlyn’ available at the Newlyn Archive Catalogue No 5.