St Ives Museum 2025
The building houses a fascinating history of St Ives’ heritage, including art, blacksmith, boat building, Cornish kitchen and parlour, Crysede (Cresta Silks), farming, fire brigade, fishing, flags, geology, Hain Steamship Company, lifeboat, lighthouses, mining, models, photographs, police, railway, shipwreck, toys, victorian clothes, wartime memorabilia – and the original fish curing cellar can still be seen.
Contacts
Address: Wheal Dream St Ives Cornwall TR26 1PR
- Telephone: 01736 796 005
- Website: View website
Open Days & Times
Apr-Oct Mon-Fri 1030-1630. Sat closes 1530. Visit website or facebook for more details.
Travel
- By Rail: St Ives / 1 mile
Facilities
- Parking
- Part disabled access
The building at Wheal Dream now houses the museum that has a long and most interesting history. Firstly the site is the result of a quarry to infill Smeaton’s Pier built between 1767 and 1770. After which, the landowner Sir Christopher Hawkins Bart had lime kilns constructed to supply building lime for new properties on The Terrace in the 1830s. Alongside these kilns was a courtyard fish curing cellar.
With the demise of the pilchard fishery, the building was purchased around 1900 by Mr Short, who had roofs removed and a large first floor added over the whole of the ground floor. There he commenced a Steam Laundry, known as the Island Laundry, which continued until the First World War when it then became St Ives’ first cinema. Tresidder’s Marine Engineers workshop occupied an area on the ground floor.
