West Cornwall may be more familiar to many as the home of the pasty, but it’s also home to a huge number of creatives.

The former fishing town of St Ives is the centre of the visual arts scene and the Tate St Ives showcases the work of the modern and abstract artists who colonised the town in the 1950s. Also, check out the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden in the former studio of one of the 20th century’s most influential sculptors.

Today St Ives has a gallery or craft workshop on every corner, although some of the stuff is of dubious quality. The weekly St Ives in the Frame tour is good for an overview of what’s worth seeing, and definitely don’t miss the Millennium and Belgrave galleries.

Just remember the town is best avoided in high summer when the harbour area can resemble a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds, with flocks of giant seagulls dive-bombing the pasty-eating tourists. A good time to visit is during the St Ives September Festival, when there’s a varied menu of arts events.

With studio space at a premium in St Ives, Krowji, in the run-down former mining town of Redruth, is emerging as a modern creative hub. Housed in an old school building, the project offers affordable workshop, office and rehearsal space. It’s also home to Creative Skills, a professional development and networking organisation, as well as the Miracle Theatre Company, and music and arts venue the Melting Pot Cafe.

The excellent reputation of the University College Falmouth has been a factor in the recent growth of the creative scene. Falmouth is also home to online TV channel myCornwall TV, set up partly to provide employment for media and broadcast graduates in the county. The Jubilee Wharf development in nearby Penryn provides reasonably priced workshop space to creative businesses and houses Miss Peapod's Kitchen Cafe, a popular venue for local folk, jazz and indie music. Also check out The Poly for world cinema, gigs and exhibitions. 

Thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan, my hometown of Penzance will for ever be associated with pirates. But you’re unlikely to encounter any unless you visit during the Golowan festival, held annually in June, during which there’s an attempt on the world record for the number of pirates in one place (target: 7,000). The festival includes gigs, theatre and a range of weird Cornish rituals, although health and safety has thankfully put paid to the one involving blazing tar barrels.

Penzance has always been the poor relation of St Ives when it comes to the arts. But it gets full marks for trying. Things to check out in the locale include Newlyn Art Gallery and its sister gallery, the Exchange; Penwith Film Society for independent and alternative films; the Acorn Arts Centre and the Studio Bar, which hosts unsigned bands from all over the world. Penzance even has its own literary festival, although it’s probably fair to say the event won’t be rivalling Hay-on-Wye any time soon.

Finally, try to make it to the Minack Theatre (pictured) on the coast towards Land’s End, a “Roman” amphitheatre cut out of the granite cliff side in the 1930s. It’s got to be the most stunning outdoor theatre in the world. Just don’t try sitting through a performance of Hamlet without a cushion.

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Image: Minack Theatre by tdroza, available under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.