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2026 Calendar Now Available
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Elaine Pearce
It is with great sadness that I have to inform you of the passing of one of our members. Elaine was our longest serving volunteer, supporting the Archive for over 25 years, as a Trustee for a period, but always as a specialist on family history, where she got to know people from Australia and America. She was an active fundraiser, always ready to help out at events, and was known for her delicious baking!
Elaine was a big personality and was much loved for her outspoken contributions.
She is sadly missed.
Lyn Burchess, Chair
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Market House update
Since the last update report there has been significant progress in preparing the Market House for use by the Archive. In early 2024 The St Ives Archive and Town Council were fortunate enough to receive central government funding from the Community Ownership Fund and the Town Enterprise Grant to renovate the Market House in the centre of St Ives. The funding received amounts to £400,000 with further funding for running costs and employment. The funding will enable The Archive to have central, secure and purpose designed premises which will have the advantage of disabled access through the inclusion of a lift and disabled toilet facility.
After a period of planning and preparation work has now started on site. A competitive tendering exercise has been undertaken and Ardent are appointed as the preferred contractor and they have wasted no time on getting to grips with the job starting with the stripping out of the non-historic parts of the premises.
To enable the work to take place this has involved the closure of the Blue Bramble Shop for a couple of months and disruption to another adjacent unit. The Archive is grateful for the cooperation and patience shown by the tenants during this disruptive process.
The works in the initial phase involve the removal of the main staircase, digging the foundation holes for the lift and the foundations for structural steelwork to support the upper floor. Further strengthening of the floor has been necessary to support the Archives roller racking which will be situated in a safe store behind the historic police cells. A major upgrade to the electricity supply for the whole of the premises has already been undertaken by National Grid.
The next phases of work will be to complete the downstairs floor screed , install the structural steelwork and ensure that trading can once more commence in the units currently under construction. A design workshop is to be held shortly to enable more detailed aspects of the internal fit out to be agreed with the contractor.
As part of the preparation work for the move, the Archive has secured grant funding from The National Archives at Kew for a conservation audit. The audit of the current collection was carried out in February by a professional conservationist and recommendations have been made on how to move the collection and also design considerations for the Market House. An action plan has been agreed by Trustees and this will be become the core topic for Volunteers meetings. The project is currently progressing to plan and the building works are expected to be completed by the end of this year with an opening in Spring 2026.
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My Archive Story: Jan Harris
Hi, I am Jan Harris (née Janet Dyer for anyone who went to the Stennack Schol in the 1950s).
I am delighted to be able to tell you how I came to be a volunteer at the St Ives Archive back in 2008, whilst the Archive was still in the Parish Rooms in St Andrew’s Street.
I had just retired and decided that I would like to find out if the Archive held any information on two subjects. Firstly, I wondered if the Archive held any information on Evacuees. My Grandparents took in twin girl evacuees when they lived in Street an Garrow during the War. I know they were very fond of each other as the twins would come and stay with them for many years after the War had ended and I still have a photo of me with one of them.
When Janet Axten (who was the Administrator at the time) asked me what my interests were, I asked if they had any information on Evacuees. Janet disappeared then came back with a very full file and flipped through the pages as we spoke. After a little while she turned the file around and to my astonishment there was a letter from one of the twins. I was then able to contact her and, as a result, not only have we kept in touch ever since but I was able to compile several books of Evacuee Stories which sell to raise much-needed funds for the Archive.
My second query related to an object I had dug up in my garden when living near Wadebridge. It was a Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry military item and, with the help of the late Ted Lever, I discovered it was a Bed Plate and was able to trace the soldier it had belonged to and the fact that he had deserted in 1901!
I found it so fascinating being able to delve into the past with the help of all the documents held at the Archive, that I now enjoy trying to find subjects that I think might interest others and writing about them for the St Ives Local.
It is also very satisfying when people come into the Archive hoping to track down information on family members or old buildings and, more often than not, being able to find something for them.
I would encourage anyone to come to see what information we hold and I would be very surprised if there was nothing to interest them.
My Archive Story is a new monthly blog series featuring a volunteer and their personal experience, expertise and interests at the St Ives Archive. If you would like to learn more about becoming a volunteer at the Archive, please get in touch with us here.
St Ives Archive have been very lucky to be selected as charity of the month at the Engine Inn at Cripplesease. This means the money raised from all fundraising events they hold in February will be donated to the Archive.
Events include a quiz every Tuesday night in February.
The quiz starts at 7.30pm and teams of up to 6 can enter, for £2 per person. Booking is essential either online or by phoning 01736 780793. Then register your team at 7.15 for the 7.30 start.
Also, every Friday in February, there is a Meat Raffle, £1 per strip.
A big thank you to the Engine Inn for supporting us in February! We hope to see some of you there next month.
This year we opened the Market House in March and August to enable the local community and visitors to view the interiors for the first time in over 70 years. This has provided a great opportunity to share our thoughts with those who visited and to learn what potential future users might want from the new Archive space. On both days we used a questionnaire to gather thoughts and information to help inform what services we offer. Both events were a great success and were well attended; we received 58 responses representing roughly a quarter of all those attending.
We asked have you visited the Archive before and 43% said that they had either visited when we were in the town centre before or at Carbis Bay. Encouragingly we had 27 new visitors who had not visited the Archive before in either location.
Nearly all visitors (92%) knew what an archive does which means we are currently attracting those who are already interested and those who were invited. Our future challenge will be to make the collection more accessible to those who would not normally use an archive or know what it does.
There was overwhelming support when asked about the Archive moving back into town. Some example responses are: Brilliant use of the Market House due to its history, Good place to drop into, Exciting to have in town for all to see and many thought it was simply a good idea.
Asked whether you are more likely to visit in the future when in town, 99% of those responding said yes and a fifth of those said they would visit more. This level of response shows significant support for moving into town and away from the premises in Carbis Bay.
When asked if we were to have exhibitions on local topics would they be of interest, we had 54 responses (93% ) all of which said yes and we received a huge number of ideas, here are just some of them:
- Old Photographs
- Old St Ives
- Local history, artists, photography
- Businesses past
- History of sailing, lighthouses, shipwrecks
- Local history, artists,
- Church, mining
- Artists, local artists, history
- Old shops, how things used to be
- The Jumbos
- Rowing
- Fish processing, tin mines and workers, Cornish traditions
- Railways, branch line
- Old characters in the town ‘Limpy’ etc.
- How the town became a centre for art
- History of St Ives and surrounding area
- World War 2 including evacuation, prisoners and crimes, events associated with The Market House
This has provided us with some valuable ideas for exhibitions and we are open to more. If you would like to contact us through this website with more ideas you will be most welcome, we want to make what we do at the Archive both relevant and interesting to the community of St Ives and its visitors.
As a final question we asked if we were to have a bookshop would you support it and 93% of respondents were in support of this idea.
The Archive Trustees and volunteers thoroughly enjoyed opening the premises for a viewing prior to the refurbishment works being carried out. Our thanks go to the St Ives Town Council for affording us this opportunity to begin to share our new home more widely.
In October this year two heritage-based organisations in St Ives were fortunate to be awarded a training grant of £350 from the Association of Independent Museums (AIM). The grant was awarded for a conservator-led training day about the care of collections, held on 27 November 2024, which was well timed as both organisations are currently going through a period of change and improvement.
This event provided a great opportunity for 30 volunteers from St Ives Archive and St Ives Museum to share a day together on a training topic of mutual interest to both and also to meet socially over a sandwich and cup of tea at lunchtime.
Victoria Stevens, an experienced conservator, led the day with great energy and humour notwithstanding having to start out for St Ives at 4am in the morning. The day was divided into two parts with the topic of handling and cleaning collections in the morning and housing and basic conservation in the afternoon. There was lively debate about managing the environmental conditions for both organisations, especially in granite buildings by the sea. The afternoon session included how to remove adhesive tape from documents which touched on the ethical dilemma of whether it should be removed at all!
Overall the day was judged a great success by those attending and thanks go to AIM and Tregenna Castle Resort Hotel for making it all possible.
In October 2024 St Ives Archive was awarded one of three Resilience Grants by The National Archives. We will use the grant to undertake a collections’ care audit, carried out by qualified and experienced conservator Victoria Stevens. The audit will include a review of the existing collection and access policies, and it will make recommendations for moving the collection to new premises in St Ives. It will also provide advice on storage requirements and modern collections’ care facilities, including environmental and security controls.
Lyn Burchess, Chair of St Ives Archive, said “This is a wonderful opportunity to improve the care of our collections, and enable our volunteers to implement and engage with all aspects of conservation.”
You are invited to the Archive’s next Pub Quiz on Friday 1st November!
The Quiz and Raffle will kick off at 7.30pm for an 8pm start at Polmanter Touring Park in St Ives.
🎟️ £5 per person
🙋 No limit on team numbers
Let us know if you plan on attending and forming a team by emailing admin@stivesarchive.org.
We hope to see you there!