Newspaper Article

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CORNWALL ; Sun, sea and sand - there's plenty to enjoy on a traditional beach holiday in our most westerly county. But Cornwall is also rather smart, with designer hotels, art galleries and seafood to die for, say LUCY GILLMORE and RHIANNON BATTEN

Lucy Gillmore and Rhiannon Batten

2003

Overview

Funny you should say that. Artists have long been drawn to Cornwall, especially the far western peninsula of West Penwith, with its vast expanse of sky, dramatic light and untamed landscape. St Ives may be packed with bucket-and-spade-wielding tourists who come for the surrounding beaches, but it has also been pulling in artists since the 1920s when potters Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada moved in. The most famous artists' colony, of course, was that established by sculptor Barbara Hepworth, along with her husband Ben Nicholson, Bernard Leach and Naum Gabo in the 1930s. Thirty years later they were followed by the likes of Patrick Heron, Terry Frost and Peter Lanyon, and today the trend is continued by younger artists. If you're here to pay homage to the region's artistic heritage, there are two big attractions. The Tate St Ives at Porthmeor Beach (01736 796226, www.tate.org.uk; open 10am-5.30pm daily, entrance pounds 4.75 adults, free for under 18s) offers big-name shows in a big, blousy building; it is currently showing the Barbara Hepworth Centenary Exhibition which runs until 12 October. The more intimate Barbara Hepworth Museum & Sculpture Garden is on Barnoon Hill (01736 796226; open 10am-5.30pm daily, single entry prices pounds 4.25 for adults, free for children; a joint ticket including the Tate costs pounds 7.50). There's something magical about Hepworth's studio (set up with her old tools and raw materials to look as if she's just popped out) and sub-tropical garden scattered with the finished sculptures. On the north coast. The rugged Atlantic coastline is far wilder than the southern stretch bordering the calmer English Channel. Tacky, tawdry Newquay has been reborn as the centre of the Cornish surfing universe, but much of the coastline from St Agnes to Morwenstow is good surfing territory. Gone are the pasty white wannabes of a decade ago, replaced by an influx of barefoot, blonde dreadlocked dudes. Fat Willies Surf Shack (01637 852052), a stalwart of the Newquay scene, has been joined by a whole host of surfing schools and shops. Check out the Fistral Surf Company (01637 850520. www.fistralsurf.com) and the Newquay Surfing Centre (01637 850737, www.nationalsurfingcentre.com), which is run by the British Surfing Association (01637 876474, www.britsurf.co.uk). Newquay has three top surfing \"breaks\" - get the lingo - Little Fistral, North Fistral and South Fistral. For beginners, Towan is a good bet. For more information visit www.surfnewquay.co.uk. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is just one of the wildly romantic renditions of the Legend of King Arthur and those Knights of the Round Table that's stocked in the gift shop at Tintagel on the north coast of Cornwall. The crumbling castle ruins on the windswept cliff are at their most atmospheric on a broodingly blustery day. Although Arthur is placed in other Celtic locations, the Cornish landscape lends itself particularly well to the legend. The castle at Tintagel (above) dates back to the 12th century, built by Earl Reginald of Cornwall, whose brother was the patron of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the scholar whose History of the British Kings launched the saga of King Arthur. According to legend, Merlin smuggled Uther Pendragon into Tintagel using magic to disguise him as the Duke of Cornwall so that he could make love to Igerna, the duke's wife. Arthur was conceived and a legend born.

• Publisher: Independent Digital News & Media
• Subject: Batten, Rhiannon / du Maurier, Daphne / Gillmore, Lucy / Hepworth, Barbara / Stein, Rick