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Case study
Newlyn Heritage Trail
Location: Newlyn, South West
Applicant: Golowan Community Arts
Grant awarded: £44,500
Total project cost: £49,592
Grant programme: Your Heritage
Type of heritage: Culture and local traditions
Aims of the project
To create a heritage trail and waymarkers for the village of Newlyn, with an associated guidebook and website. To produce a multimedia CD-Rom presentation of Newlyn’s history and a programme of archive film screenings and local talks.
Background to the project
Golowan is one of Cornwall’s best-known community arts groups. It has many years’ experience of community-led projects, including those with deprived groups, church groups and young people ’s groups.
Golowan’s earlier heritage projects included the research, design and production of Penzance Town Trail in 2000–01. The organisation also hosts Penzance and Newlyn’s annual Golowan Festival (Feast of St John) in June, which attracts more than 60,000 people. Newlyn is linked by housing developments to the nearby town of Penzance, but it retains a strong separate identity as a close-knit community and industrial fishing port.
Although still one of the South West’s principal offshore fishing centres, Newlyn has suffered in recent years from cutbacks in the industry. The village has a historical association with the arts that stems from the painters of the 19th Century Newlyn School of rural realism as well as from the production of decorative copper wares for which Newlyn was famous at that time. Surviving examples of this craft tradition include the Four Elements frieze on the front of Newlyn Art Gallery.
Newlyn’s heritage is a source of local pride. In previous years, archive film and history evenings held during the Golowan Festival were heavily oversubscribed. Local people involved in Golowan’s projects identified the need to interpret the history of Newlyn. A recent report from Newlyn Fishing Forum, an organisation involved with the regeneration of Newlyn, also highlighted the potential for a fishing trail. This project was intended to combine local people’s interest in and knowledge of their heritage with the need to provide more for visitors to Newlyn. As elsewhere in Cornwall, tourism is important to the local economy, but Newlyn does not have the sandy beaches and visitor facilities that attract tourists to other towns in the area.
What did the project involve?
Project staff were appointed to research material and oversee the development process. Waymarkers in the form of bronze plaques were commissioned from local sculptor Tom Leaper and cast in the nearby town of Hayle. The use of bronze recalls the celebrated Newlyn copperwork. The waymarkers were strategically placed around the village at points of historic interest along the 2km (1.3 mile) trail.
Newlyn Heritage Trail opened on 31 March 2004. A guidebook and CD-Rom have been produced, marking the route and providing information on the history of Newlyn. The guidebook is illustrated with archive photographs from the collection at Penlee House, Penzance.
What difference did the project make?
The evening events that started the project brought people of all ages and backgrounds together. The project helped to foster pride of place and enable Newlyn residents to celebrate and conserve their heritage. Funds raised from the sale of the guidebook will be used to support promotion and maintenance of the heritage trail.
The waymarkers extend the successful Penzance Town Trail and provide an additional attraction for visitors to the area, encouraging people to explore more of Newlyn and to stay longer in the village.
How did the project meet our criteria?
The project met our Your Heritage criteria because it set out to:
increase understanding and enjoyment of our heritage;
give people a better opportunity to experience heritage by improving access; and
help to improve people’s quality of life by benefiting the community and wider public.
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Newlyn Heritage Trail
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