Newlyn old harbour pier, harbour walls to south and three slipways

Summary

Harbour, comprising a curved pier with parapet wall, harbour walls and three slipways. First recorded in the 1430s and rebuilt in 1732, with later additions and alterations, including the rebuilding of the western slip and retaining wall in the early C20. A 1960s building on the south side of the harbour known as ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’ is excluded from the List entry.

Reasons for Designation

The old harbour pier, harbour walls to south and three slipways, Newlyn, Cornwall are listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* the pier and southern wall are likely to retain C15 fabric, and the harbour has been in almost continuous use since that date;
* the 1732 rebuilding of the pier places it amongst an intense period of characteristic maritime construction in Cornwall;
* for the good survival of vertical dry-stone masonry in its construction, which is both practical and also demonstrates a vernacular building skill in local granite;
* the associated later slipways provide evidence of the growth and importance of the harbour into the C19.

Historic interest:
* as the focal point of the medieval settlement of Newlyn which grew upwards and along the coast into the C20;
* as an important and intrinsic component of Cornwall’s maritime history, particularly as the harbour’s scale is defined by that of the Mounts Bay lugger;
* for its contribution to the subject matter of the Newlyn school of artists, including Stanhope Forbes and Harold Harvey;
* as the earliest surviving structure relating to Newlyn’s fishing industry, which continues to thrive and display a strong Cornish nature today.

Group value:
* with the Grade II-listed buildings at 35 and 39 Fore Street, which sit upon the harbour’s southern retaining wall.

History

Located on the south coast of Cornwall in the north-west corner of Mounts Bay, modern-day Newlyn comprises three settlements: Tolcarne, Street-an-Nowan and Newlyn Town. The town’s name was first recorded in 1278 and derives from the Cornish place-name elements ‘lu’ meaning fleet and ‘lyn’ meaning pool, the latter possibly referring to Gwavas Lake, the sheltered bay to the east of the town. Newlyn Town originated as a small seasonal fishing place which used the beach for landing and launching small boats and is probably the oldest part of the settlement. Landward access from Tolcarne and Street-an-Nowan to Newlyn Town was along the beach, a preferable journey to that inland via the steep Chywoone Hill road.

The first reference to a quay or jetty there is in an offer of indulgences by Edmund de Lacy, Bishop of Exeter, in 1435 or 1437 for its repair, suggesting that it had already been in existence for some time. The earliest image of a quay at Newlyn dates to around 1540 when Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell ordered the mapping of potential invasion sites around England’s coast for fortification. The more detailed of the two maps which include Mounts Bay shows a harbour at Newlyn protected by a distinctively curving pier or quay. This hooked form is also shown on Greenville Collins’ 1693 map. From the late C17 Penzance specialised in the export of tin and trade in luxury goods, and many fish merchants moved their businesses to Newlyn where the harbour was also safer to enter in all weathers and tide states.

In 1732 William Arundell of Trengwainton, who owned property in Newlyn Town, funded the rebuilding of the harbour pier following its destruction by a storm. The structure was extended on new foundations and rebuilt with parallel battered walls using vertical masonry infilled with earth, described as like a ‘broad hedge’, at a cost of £300. The people of Newlyn came to an agreement with Arundell that they would keep the new pier in good repair in return for low dues (1 pence per exported hogshead of fish). The harbour could provide shelter for up to 40 fishing boats; it was always dry at low water.

Exports of pilchards from Cornwall were first recorded in 1555, and the fish was Newlyn’s mainstay. Exports increased in the C17, and in the C19 the industry boomed. In 1847 over 8,000 tonnes of preserved pilchards were exported from Cornwall, many loads destined for Catholic Europe, and transport opportunities were improved by the connection of Penzance to London by the railway in 1859. The old harbour was at the heart of Newlyn’s fishing industry, and photographs from the 1870s show it full of luggers with further boats moored in Gwavas Lake, the parapet of the pier covered by fishing nets laid out to dry, and a storage building of granite construction on the south-east side of the harbour. However, the increase in the industry put pressure on the capacity of the old harbour. Attempts to build a larger harbour at Newlyn began in the late C18, but the construction of two new piers to the north of the old harbour to create a safe and commodious harbour for larger boats did not occur until 1885 when construction of the south pier began; it was completed in 1887 when the first harbourmaster was also appointed. Some records suggest that the slipway at the old harbour was widened at this time. The north pier was completed in two phases in 1888 and 1893, and a trawl quay added in 1900. The south pier was extended from 1913 to 1915 for the erection of an Ordnance Survey tidal observatory. The south pier was allocated for heavy cargoes such as locally quarried stone and imported coal, and the north pier for fishing vessels. Photographs from this later C19 period provide further evidence of features at the old harbour including bollards and mooring rings and show that despite the construction of the two new piers it remained in use by luggers into the C20. Nets and lines continued to be draped across the parapet of the pier to dry after being treated with ‘cutch’, a preserving solution of bark, staining the masonry in the process.

The historic photographs are complemented by the work of artists including Walter Tremenheere and Henry Martin, who were drawn to the picturesque qualities of the old harbour before the Newlyn School was established in around 1884. The unofficial leader of the Newlyn School, Stanhope Forbes, depicted the catch on the shingle beach at The Square in Tolcarne in ‘Fish sale on a Cornish beach’ (1885). The old harbour was frequently used by Forbes and the Newlyn School artists as a backdrop for their romanticised plein-air scenes of Newlyn life and the fishing industry; this also provided additional income for many in the town who were paid to pose as models. Whilst artistic licence needs to be accounted for, their paintings provide hints of the harbour’s features, including distinctive ‘needle-eye’ railings (convenient for drying and storing seine nets) and the central slipway, and activity in the late C19 and early C20. Examples include Walter Langley’s ‘Disaster: scene in a Cornish fishing village’ (1889) and ‘The News’ (1903); William Banks Fortescue’s ‘Old Newlyn Harbour’ (1891); and ‘Bringing in the catch’ by Harold Harvey (1909).

In 1908 an iron foundry on the corner of The Fradgan was redeveloped as an ice works and the route along the beach was replaced by The Strand, named after its course along the strandline. The first purpose-built fish market was built opposite the Star Inn in around 1909. The storage building to the south-east of the old harbour seen in mid-C19 photographs appears to have been demolished by the early C20. In 1936 the parapet wall was partially removed along the curved eastern side of the pier, repaired with concrete and a railing erected. By the 1960s only one pilchard packing plant survived in Cornwall and the old harbour became empty of working boats. In 1966 a quarry supervisor’s office was constructed on the site of the demolished storage building on the south-east side of the harbour; it was later used as an institute, a space for occasional prayer, and a café known as ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’; the building is excluded from the List entry.

Despite the reduction in pilchard exports, deep sea fishing from Newlyn continued and the harbour infrastructure was updated and enlarged. These works included the construction of the Mary Williams Pier in 1979-1980; a new RNLI Penlee station at the north-west end of the old harbour (the Newlyn lifeboat had been moored near the old harbour before it was moved to a new lifeboat house at Penlee Point in 1913); and in 1988 a new fish market was built. In the 1990s the Cornish pilchard gained a resurgence as the ‘Cornish sardine’ and today Newlyn is the largest deep-sea fishing port in England in terms of tonnage of fish landed. Small visiting boats continue to be moored along the old harbour’s quaysides and intertidal area, including the historic lugger ‘Barnabas’ which was registered in St Ives in 1881 and is now maintained by the Cornish Maritime Trust. A reinvigorated interest in Cornwall’s maritime history and historic vessels resulted in the old harbour being restored in 2025.

Details

Harbour, comprising a curved pier with parapet wall, harbour walls and three slipways. First recorded in the 1430s and rebuilt in 1732, with later additions and alterations, including the rebuilding of the western slip and retaining wall in the early C20. A 1960s building on the south side of the harbour known as ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’ is excluded from the List entry.

MATERIALS: local granite blocks and vertical masonry, possibly from the quarries at Lamorna. Surfaces comprise local elvan stone, cobbles and granite blocks.

PLAN: the pier is approximately 91m long and is aligned south to north-west, curving at its eastern point.

DETAILS: Newlyn old harbour comprises four principal elements alongside the curved pier. At the south-east end of the pier is the ‘eastern slip’ and opposite, on the inner curve to the harbour basin, is the ‘central slip’. To the west, accessed via steps and a granite ramp from Fore Street, is the ‘western slip’. To the south between the central slip and western slip is a section of harbour walling; three houses above are constructed directly from the wall. Adjacent to the eastern house (39 Fore Street) is the principal access ramp from Fore Street, which turns to the east and then north onto the pier. A C20 building at the south-east of the harbour, known as ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’, is excluded from the List entry.

The structure of the ACCESS RAMP from Fore Street may date to the late C18. It retains a distinctive late-C19 wrought-iron ‘needle-eye’ railing (shown in paintings by Langley and others) and granite edging blocks, but the surface of the ramp is largely C20 concrete and Tarmac, with compacted earth and cobbles at its eastern end. The harbour face of the ramp comprises coursed drystone granite masonry; half of the elevation is laid horizontally and half vertically.

PIER: the pier largely dates to the 1732 rebuilding and later, but it is thought that earlier medieval fabric may survive within the structure. Most of the pier’s side elevations are of vertically coursed drystone granite masonry which dates to the 1732 rebuilding. There are areas of late C18 or early C19 repair, most visible at the pier head to the north-west where large horizontally coursed regular granite blocks are reinforced with wrought-iron pins and ties; they may have been reused from an unknown structure. On the seaward face near the pier head is a projecting granite block, probably for mooring. A parapet wall along the north-east side of the pier is contemporary to the 1732 structure, evident in the continuation of the vertically coursed stonework on the north-east face. An upper, narrower section of the parapet was added later, and the join is clear on the north-east face; it also appears to supersede the repair at the pier head. The upper section continues the Cornish hedge-like tradition, with two solid granite outer faces filled with rubble; the top is sloped seaward, and the granite blocks are well-spaced creating channels to assist in seawater run-off. The top of the 1732 parapet wall is largely laid with cobbles, patched with a mid-C20 asphalt containing beach material, and there are concrete and granite steps at the southern end and projecting granite block steps at two points on the quay side. Along the top of the 1732 parapet wall are various features, including barrel rests created within the granite edging stones, a spar rest, and wrought-iron pintles for securing drying nets. The north-west end of the parapet forms a clear, stepped profile comprising the rebuilt pier head, C18 parapet and its later upper section. The parapet wall finishes roughly where the pier curves to the south; its truncated end has been brought to an angle and faced in concrete. Its footprint from this point to ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’ (excluded from the List entry) is covered with concrete and there is a C21 replica ‘needle-eye’ railing along the outer edge. Elsewhere the surface of the quay represents multiple phases of renewal but much of the present surface, a mix of local elvan stone and cobbles and the contrasting flat-topped worked granite blocks along the south-west edge and north-west corner of the quay, are the earliest visible phase and probably dates to the mid- to late C19. Later C20 patching appears to have been made in cut and coursed granite, and areas of surface loss have been patched with asphalt and Tarmac; the surface was being restored at the time of writing (2025). A double flight of eight cut-granite steps in the centre of the south-west face of the pier were in place by the 1870s. Along the quay are ten mooring bollards: seven are of granite moorstone, five roughly 0.5m in height, and two at the southern end of the pier are almost 1m tall. Wrought iron mooring rings on eyelets are set into the horizontal quaysides; some are identifiable in early-C20 photographs and are likely to supersede the granite mooring bollards.

SLIPWAYS:
The CENTRAL SLIP, located at the south-east corner of the harbour basin, is probably the earliest of the three slipways but post-dates the vertical coursing of the main C18 structure which can be seen to its north. Sloping shallowly down to a natural stone outcrop, it is paved with granite and elvan boulders with granite edging stones; the flat approach is compacted earth and cobbles.

The EASTERN SLIP is situated to the south-east of ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’ (which is excluded from the List entry) and abuts the earlier quay structure; it probably dates in its current form to the late C19. It is constructed of dry-laid granite rubble with worked granite edging blocks to the north-east edge and face.

The WESTERN SLIP is likely to be a rebuilding of an earlier slipway which is visible in late-C19 photographs and paintings. In its present form it is contemporary with the early-C20 engineering works required for the huge retaining harbour wall below Fore Street and the construction of The Strand. The slipway is paved with regularly cut granite blocks at its base with granite edging stones and has a ‘needle-eye’ railing on the north-east edge. The remainder of the surface was being restored at time of writing (2025). The harbour face of the slipway comprises coursed drystone granite masonry. The slipway can be accessed at its head from Fore Street via a granite-sett slope, with further steps on the north-east side to the landing stage on the beach below.

HARBOUR WALLS: the harbour is enclosed on its south side by retaining walls below 35-39 Fore Street, and by a massive retaining wall on the south-west side of the western slip. Different phases of construction are evident in the wall below the buildings. Below 39 Fore Street the base of the wall comprises coursed granite blocks on a massive granite block plinth; both are likely to be of earlier construction than the rubble stone to the late-C18 building’s cellar above. Above the shoreline below 35 and 37 Fore Street is a section of vertical-coursed walling approximately 4m high which may pre-date the 1732 rebuilding; the masonry surrounding it is rubble stone with granite quoins. Behind the central section of this wall is an open yard, a remnant of the buildings’ use as pilchard cellars. A central opening for the passing through of unprocessed pilchard catches and processed barrels survives; below and to the left of the opening are projecting granite blocks, probably used as steps to reach the opening, and a mooring eyelet, with square drainage holes (from the cellar’s yard) to their right. There are two granite mooring bollards at the base of the wall on the shingle foreshore. To the west of this is a lower section of rubble stone wall to a platform (now a domestic patio); there is conduit head central on the wall which appears to be a modern structure and may replace an early-C20 water tap outside the Red Lion Inn on Fore Street, above. A massive retaining wall constructed from large uncoursed granite blocks runs from behind this platform along the south side of the western slipway to its head.

On the west elevation of the single-storey building known as ‘The Fisherman’s Rest’ is a granite plaque commemorating the voyage of the ‘Mystery’ from the old harbour to Australia in 1854-1855; the building is excluded from the List entry.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

69345

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Lomax, P, Newlyn: When The Artists Came – a history from 1881-1914, (2021)

Websites
Newlyn Old Harbour restoration project, accessed 21/10/2025 from https://newlynoldharbour.co.uk/
Heritage Gateway: Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record, accessed 21/10/2025 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCO44932&resourceID=1020
Cornish Memory, accessed 21/10/2025 from https://www.cornishmemory.com/
Britain from Above, accessed 21/10/2025 from https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en

Other
Statement Heritage / D Ratcliffe & C Johns, Newlyn Old Quay and Harbour: Archaeological assessment and statement of significance, 2023
R Burns, Newlyn Harbour: historical developments from favoured landing beach to premier fishing harbour, n/d
Cornwall Archaeological Unit / F Fleming, Historic England: Cornish Ports and Harbours Assessment: Newlyn, 2016

End of official list entry

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