New Nature Writing - A Walk Through St Ives
- Izzy Collingridge
- Aug 31, 2021
- 10 min read
This is a creative piece that was part of my final submission, earning me first class honours at Worcester University.
Is tourism damaging the Cornish countryside?
I have the internal debate that I have with myself every time my family and I visit St Ives. Despite my love for the seaside town and the sense of peace I feel when I’m there, I also have to consider my selfishness. It’s clear to see that us tourists are having a damaging effect as we arrive in hordes in the summer months. Yet we also pour money into the economy, funding family run business and providing revenue. The single biggest employer in Cornwall is tourism, creating work for one out of five Cornish inhabitants. So, do I allow myself to indulge in the destination, telling myself that I’m respectful and conscious of the environmental impact I have? Or do I acknowledge that I am part of a larger problem. The erosion of footpaths, extra pollution, natural habitat loss and an increased pressure on endangered species, just to name a few.
Like many people, I feel a sense of ownership over St Ives. After visiting six years ago with my parents and brother, I was instantly enthralled. After that first trip, we returned every summer for the next five years. A far cry from my small countryside village, St Ives is like paradise to me. The town is named after St La, the daughter of an Irish chieftain, who supposedly sailed to Cornwall on a leaf, having missed the boat carrying other the other saints. Once a working fishing town, as well as cashing in on the traditional trade of mining, St Ives is now a hub for holiday makers.
Cornwall brings in approximately five million tourists annually, with over 290,000 visitors in Cornwall in any one day in the peak seasons. It’s clear to see that it’s a hugely popular tourist destination, with people returning year on year. St Ives has a special place in my heart and as I grown older, I’ve realized that I need to make more of an effort to help protect the Cornish environment. If we want to continue enjoying all that St Ives has to offer and its endless beauty, us tourists must make a conscious effort to be active, rather than passive when it comes to maintaining the Cornish coastlines. If we don’t engage and care, these places won’t exist for much longer.
At the end of the article there are links to a number of charities and conservation organizations that take valuable donations. The Cornwall Heritage Trust and the Cornwall Wildlife Trust also accept donations of any size as well as offering volunteer opportunities.
I hope this walk through St Ives reminds you of its natural beauty, and what we stand to lose if us tourists don’t actively work to make a difference.
I rise early, sipping coffee on the little balcony, the coastal town unfurling under our feet. My eyes are met with colour, yellow lichen rooftops on sun-stained cottages, aqua water, and white sand beaches. Once I’m dressed and ready I step out the door of the holiday cottage, straight into the sunshine. The scent of sun cream fills my nose, and my beach bag bumps against my hip. If I crane my neck up, I can see Tregenna Castle perched way above, surrounded by rolling fields and dense trees. I dodge and weave between children with body boards slung over their backs and couples clutching striped sun umbrellas, all heading towards the sound of the ocean.
I arrive at the beginning of the cobbled high street. Gift shops, bakeries, galleries, and delis straight ahead, the harbour to my right. I carry straight on, tempted by the thought of a Cornish pasty. Grains of sand are pressed between the cobbles as the grass tries to squeeze through the gaps, but the sand chokes it out. Carried far and wide on the soles of salt encrusted feet. Hanging baskets overflow with petunias, unfurling their petals in the early morning sun. I clutch a warm Cornish pasty to my chest, the paper bag branding it as the ‘Best Pasty in Cornwall’. I walk past two other bakeries, both claiming to sell the same thing. I continue on, past gift shops filled with shells and dried starfish stolen from the ocean. These shops close in the autumn as the summer draws to an end. During this time, the low-pressure system generates a swell in the Atlantic Ocean. It grows larger and larger until the brunt of the storm hits, crashing over the harbour walls and swirling round the shop windows. I sometimes wonder, when the ocean batters against the gift shop door, is it trying to reclaim the shells and dried starfish? Is it trying to pull them back to the depths of the ocean, where they used to once belong?
I step out of the cobbled lane and onto the harbour. A long, curved pathway hugs the beach, as boats bob on the water’s surface, their rusted chains anchoring them to the harbour wall. Hordes of seagull’s swoop over my head, their beady eyes fixed on my pasty. The waves roll further up the beach, reclaiming the sand and pushing against the brick wall, over and over. I head to the port that juts out into the sea, piles of crab traps waiting to be loaded onto the boats and dropped to the seabed, ready for unsuspecting sea creatures to wander in. The National Lobster Hatchery is a marine conservation charity that works to protect and increase the number of lobsters in our waters. As well as conducting valuable research into marine conservation. A link to donate to the charity to help fund their vital work can be found at the end of the article.
There are rare occasions where I get to see seals lurking in these shallow waters, lolling on their backs, and watching inquisitively. This is unsurprising, as a few miles west of St Ives you’ll find Seal Island, the home of a colony of Grey Atlantic Seals. They use the island as a means to protect themselves from the wild Atlantic waters and the larger predators that swim in the nearby waters. Grey seals are bottom feeders, meaning that the water surrounding the island is the perfect place for them to hunt for fish and shellfish, with the seabed covered in kelp. However, with all the hustle and bustle of the tourists on the mainland, sometimes the seals get confused and are drawn to the harbour by the prospect of food. Desperate to snap the perfect picture, tourists have begun trying to swim with the seals, but few of them realise how powerful they are. One false move in front of a territorial male, or if a mother feels that her pup is threatened, they’ll attack. An adult male can be up to three metres long and with their powerful jaws and teeth, it won’t be long until someone is left with a serious injury.
The Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust work tirelessly to find solutions to raise awareness about marine life disturbance and limiting the impact of plastic, chemical, pharmaceutical and noise pollution on marine life. They accept one off donations, or you can set up a standing order. If you’re not in a position to donate, you can also join their team of routine surveyors by counting seals that appear in St Ives. This helps to contribute to the seasonal pattern of seal habitat use.
I head back the way I came, along the port and up into the streets filled with cottages. Wetsuits hang over the front walls and flip flops are abandoned at the door. I’m filled with jealously at the thought of being able to live here all year long. I linger at the wall overlooking Bamaluz Beach, or as I like to call it, the dog beach. I steal a quick bite of my pasty before the seagull’s swoop, an ever-growing problem in St Ives. Fueled by the tourists who toss them their leftover chips, and the litter that’s discarded in the busy summer months, the herring gulls become savage, snatching ice creams and pasties from unsuspecting walkers.
It seems ironic to me that the galleries are filled with beautiful paintings of the coastal landscape, nearly always dotted with gulls in the horizon or perched on the sand. We see seagulls as an integral part of a seaside holiday, yet we moan and complain, referring to them as, ‘rats with wings.’ Are we not the ones who made them behave in this manor? The beach is a wild and natural location, not a private pool. Gulls have fed in these waters for as long as we’ve known, it’s natural that if they get some chips tossed their way, they’re going to swarm. We’re taught not to feed bears and other wild animals, the same should be applied for seagulls. I firmly lodge my wrapper in a bin and watch the ringed plovers hop along to peck at the pastry that escaped onto the floor, favouring the buttery flakes over their usual spiders and flies. Salt-soaked dogs fly up and down the sand, yapping in delight as the waves chase them up the beach. I’ve swam in these waters when there were dolphins not ten meters away, their fins slicing through the water, equally as wary about me, as I was them. You can never predict when dolphins will appear in St Ives, but they often turn up to feed on the small shoals of fish that gather just off the main island. If you want to catch a glimpse of the dolphins, you can purchase a ticket for a boat tour to seal island, with the possibility of spotting some dolphins from a safe and respectable distance.
A few paces further along the coast and you’ll find yourself at St Ives Island, nestled between Porthgwidden and Porthmeor beach. The island, which isn’t really an island at all, but once an ancient promontory fort, is now used by migratory birds as a stopping off point. This is the perfect place to do some birdwatching. Some of the resident birds that can be spotted more frequently are Manx Shearwaters, which glide over the surface of the ocean looking for sardines and herrings. Alternatively, you can see Gannets, Razorbills, Guillemots or even Puffins.
If you’re lucky, you might spot some Gray Phalaropes, arctic breeding birds that cross to the UK coast after stormy weather. Gray Phalaropes look for their food by foraging in shallow waters. If you see them swimming around in circles, they’re creating a small water vacuum to suck up insects and small crustaceans from the bottom of the water.
A small set of weather worn steps carry me to another path. I round the corner and I’m met by Porthmeor beach, the largest beach in St Ives and in my opinion, the most beautiful. However, the view is slightly obscured. A small mobile phone mount perches on the grassy knoll, inviting beach goers to snap a photo of the beach and upload it to a database. From these photos, scientists can track the slow coastal erosion and rising sea levels, as a result of global warming. If the sea levels continue to rise, over time two parts of Cornwall could become separate islands. Following a thirty-meter rise, this could see the likes of Hayle, St Erth, Penzance and St Ives being submerged, slowly becoming an underwater town. Surfers bob on the water, feeling the swell as the ocean rises beneath them, bit by bit. A huge expanse of sand is presented before me and I wiggle my toes as it bakes in the sun. I walk to the water’s edge and feel the chill of the waves send a shock through my body. I soon grow used to the temperature and walk through the surf, the salt sticking to my skin. The grassy headland looms above me as a I walk onwards. So, I brush the sand off my feet and slip my sandals back on, ready to tackle the coastal path that skirts around the edge of St Ives.
The scent of salt and the seaweed slowly drifts away, replaced by grass and damp earth. I trudge along the worn path, adorned with tufty grass and an array of flowers and weeds on either side. The sea churns underneath the cliff to my right and the moors sweep up to my left. I reach the cliff edge and stand where the “huers” would have once stood in 1800’s. The word is said to be derived from the old French verb, huer, ‘to give an alarm’. This person’s job was to stand on the cliff edge and watch for the large shoals of Pilchards to appear. Once they could see the dark mass pulsing through the water, they would wave a huge bush in the air to alert the surrounding boats, nets, and fishermen to get themselves in to position. Once the fish were far enough into the bay, the heur would give their second signal and the net would be cast, scooping up hundreds of thousands of fish.
The St Ives pilchard fishery was a substantial commercial operation, with the largest recorded catch in a single day taken in 1847, when over 57,000,000 pilchards were caught. By the late 1800’s the pilchards stopped coming ashore and the business died out by the early 1900’s. Although it’s not clear why the shoals declined so rapidly, many believe it was due to overfishing. These days, people are more interested in a more diverse range of fish. You can watch the local fishermen hauling in their daily catches of mackerel and bass. As well as this, many of the restaurants boast their freshly caught seafood. Perched at the base of the craggy cliff are piles of rocks, hunched over as the waves pound over the top of them. Mussels, molluscs, and clams cling onto them tightly. Yet another delicacy to be prised from the ocean and put on plates in restaurants.
I pause and turn back towards St Ives, letting the wind carry my hair. I look forward to the fresh sea food I’ll eat later and the beer I’ll drink in the Pilchard Press. I begin to plan how I’ll spend tomorrow. Will I go shopping, or will I swim in the clear waters? Perhaps I’ll have a look around the art galleries, musing over whether or not the artist has managed to capture the specific shade of blue of the ocean. I hope to be able to visit St Ives for many years to come and continue to do all these things. Nevertheless, this’ll only happen if us tourists take the necessary steps to ensure the beauty and natural wilderness of St Ives is preserved. If you have any donations to spare, or just some time to do a little bit of research into how to be a respectful and active tourist, it’ll make the world of difference.
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