Pilchard Gallery

Pilchard drift boat, Cornwall County Fisheries Exhibition, Truro, Cornwall. July to August 1893

Pilchard drift boat on the River Kenwyn at Back Quay in Truro showing Samuel Brokenshire's carriage factory in the background. A number of carts and carriages are parked on the quay, with a number of onlookers who are possibly workers from the factory. The coach builder, Samuel Brokenshire (also a shoeing smith) is recorded in Kelly's Directory, 1889, at Back Quay, Royal Hotel Yard, Truro. The boat, 364FH, was registered in Falmouth. The main Fisheries Exhibition site was a field at the top of Lemon Street and the exhibition ran from 25th July 1893 for a month. Number 12 in a series of glass lantern slides recording the Fisheries Exhibition. Photographer: Unknown

© From the collection of the RIC

George Criscuolo fitting an evening gown of Crysede silk, St Ives, Cornwall. Around 1927

The gown is printed with the Pastoral design, fabric printed with the Zennor design is draped on the chair to the left and the fabric on the wall to the right bears the Isles of Scilly design. The model was Phyllis Hicks, later manageress of the St Ives shop and married to Tom Firth, one time chief dyer. Alec Walker left Mirfield, Yorkshire, in 1918 to set up a small experimental textile factory in Newlyn where wood-block printed silk fabrics and garments were designed and manufactured. By 1925 the Crysede venture had become a successful craft industry, employing many local people, which required larger premises. In 1926 the works moved to the Island Works housed in the former Western Pilchard cellar at the base of The Island in St Ives. Photographer: Unknown

© From the collection of the RIC

Harbour wall with cannon bollards, Polkerris, Tywardreath, Cornwall. 1976

View of the harbour wall towards the sea and across the cove showing part of the village. A man and child are paddling in the water. Polkerris is on the west side of the Gribben promontory and on the east side of St Austell Bay. The view shows Napoleonic era cannons embedded in the harbour wall as bollards, which lends credence to one possible meaning of the name Polkerris - Fortified Cove'. Polkerris has been part of the Rashleigh family's Menabilly Estate from the late 16th century and the estate built the half-moon quay in 1775 to help the seine fishing industry. By the 1870s, the industry was in decline. Photographer: Charles Woolf

© RIC, photographer Charles Woolf