The Cornish Riviera (1916)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- Sail away to a bygone Cornwall in this wistful coastal travelogue
Sail away to a bygone Cornwall - from Looe to Land's End by way of Polperro's weathered fishermen, Falmouth's picturesque harbour, and Newquay's rocky shores. Lingering on poetic details, this wistful coastal travelogue portrays a county bursting with rustic charm: ancient mariners, a St Ives artist, children clambering barefoot over the skeleton of a wrecked ship. Cornwall's popular image hasn't changed too much since.
It's 1916, and as the First World War rages across the channel, conscription is introduced in Britain. Yet these Cornish village harboursides are busy with sailors and fishermen, their occupations reserved from the draft.
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![Beautiful Cornwall in 1916 in colour! [HD restored and AI colorized]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Gv2H2aLPCBg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Beautiful Cornwall in 1916 in colour! [HD restored and AI colorized]](/img/tr.png)
3:05 just to the right of where that woman is seen walking is a little alley way that leads to a fisherman's cottage which is where my grandad lived back in the 50s onwards until his death.
Standing in the same spot the cameraman was, that view literally hasn't charged since this video was recorded!
Although now you wouldn't be able to see anything for all the bloody tourists standing in the way
What a brilliant time capsule, fantastic.
I wish the sea was as plastic-free now, as it was then.
Brilliant film. One less obvious big difference then is that tin and copper mining was still a big industry until WW1 triggered its long decline.
It's also a handy reminder of how unspoilt the coast (Newquay especially!) might have stayed had Cornwall been given the same National Park status as Pembrokeshire Coast got in 1951, instead of merely Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty which is a much weaker protection against inappropriate (and over-) development.
The official reason given in a 1947 government report for rejecting NP protection for Cornwall Coast was 'serious administrative difficulties'. I bet the real reason was that too many vested-interest friends-in-high-places stood to lose out from post-war developments that were later to disfigure so much of the landscape. Rant over!
I have tears in my eyes. Innocence lost in the name of affluence. No more community. How much can I get is the mantra.
Fascinating looking back at life long before my late father was born in 1917, long before I was born in 1956, had yet to visit Cornwall, hope to one day.
How fascinating watching the children and adults, and wondering, what sort of life did you have? Makes me realise just how short our lives really are.
The children in this footage would have lived through world war 1 and then most likely been called upon to fight in world war 2, makes me grateful that I have never seen or had to fight in a war.
Someone needs to make a comparison film!
It's so weird recognising places I've been from over 100 yr ago that have barely changed!
Aarh Cornwall....before it was over hyped, made expensive and overrun by Londons affluent elite.
You mean Effluent I'm sure OK
Chill out ffs
Nazarene errr I don't think you understand what he meant. Maybe your from London?
@@CrustyBalls007 you're
@@BN1960 shut the fuck up nigel
Wow, just wow, Love watching stuff like this. Sometimes YT recommendation does work. Superb.
My Nan lived to 102 and only passed 10 years ago, sorta' connects me to the life She lived.
sorta'. What does that mean, exactly?
@@Channel-os4uk LOL, its slang for "sort of",.
Channel
Sorta is short form for "sort of "
@@osacrdekter476 LOL no shit Sherlock.....look above
You can bet there are people in this time even thinking life was better 50 years before! Each generation grows up watching the destruction around them or the cost of living going crazy.
Tis the tragedy of progress you move forward but at what cost?
Fascinating insight into how life once was.
Absolutely great video. Thank you so much for posting.
Love the steam crane at 2:14!
I'm Cornish, born in West Looe and lived in East Looe. Where that boy was sitting in the first shot was just one of our many haunts. Sat there many times watching the boats, and jumped off "little pier' many times too. The second scene is not Looe.
Wow some of the comments in here, very bitter people, all with rose tinted glasses, thinking that life was much better then lol
People forget it was in the middle of WW1, and then the grim task of facing up to WW2 years later.
Wish those people could F off back to those times to find out that it wasn’t what they imagine. I’d give them an hour before they’re crying about something or other
This is fantastic. i loved watching the boys play on the shipwreck. All this was happening while a war raged on and i'll be everyone was connected to someone who was there. These kinds of time capsules on film are gems. Thank you
Lands End, now covered in tourist claptrap. All the little towns now covered in houses for the London rich. Having said that nobody dies of hard work anymore.
Or rickets.
@@greva2904 Would love to travel back and see it as it was, Lands End, the First and Last. In fact, it would be great to just travel back 100 years.
@@chrisg1234fly Yeah, these days the National Trust seems to own 98% of the Cornish coastline.
I would definitely have a ‘second home’ tax - I’d sort them out, the London rich would be selling them right quick.
@@bsimpson6204 It's one of the main reasons for HS2; plough up the country so rich Londoners can buy cheaper houses further away and still get to "work" on time. There should be a commuting tax on people who live a long way from their place if work as well.
all the boats in st ives bay compared to now thnx for sharing
LOVE this! It's where my beloved grandmother grew up and I can imagine her there around that time!
Good to see how Newquay looked back then. My mum's a Newquay girl born and bred. My father worked in the local tin mine, Wheal Jane, until his accident forced him to quit. Had a great time growing up in Newquay. Lived just up the road from Porth Beach. Not much work there to be honest. It picks up during the tourist season but expect to be back on the dole when it ends. One of the reasons why my parents moved to the South East of England. Better job prospects.
Back when you could row out and catch a feed of fish with your hand line.
Shame that the French , Spanish , and Russian factory fishing fleets have strip mined the ocean of anything edible .
It's still possible to catch fish, mackerel and pollocks in particular. We go out on our sea kayak.
@@charlestalks5638 I live in New Zealand. Went around the Cornish coast a couple of years ago, and was amazed to see zero small fish swimming around any of the wharves there. It was summer, and in summer here you can see masses of fish. I visit wharves with a cast net to catch bait. Also use a sea kayak, but an electric Kontiki is far safer and more productive. Always have the kayak strapped to the 4x4 in case it, or the long line, gets caught Mackerel is a bait fish here. Tried eating it once. Lots of omega oil but there are far better fish to.eat. Put it on a hook, and catch something bigger and better. Saw NZ mackerel in a market in Peru last year, so presumably they eat them.
Global population in 1916: 1.8 Billion
Global population today: 7.8 Billion
Fish population is inversely proportional to human population.
@@onepalproductions There are tribal members here who view that 7.8 billion as just another yummy food source.
Lovely old footage of a bygone era but can we be sure this was taken in 1916.
Not trying to be smart or anything but I don't see a single Navy vessel in Falmouth, which seems odd given that 1916 is slap, bang in the middle of WW1 and the Battle of Jutland was fought in May/June 1916. Surely there would have to have been a naval presence in the Southwest Approaches at this time!
Actually I couldn't see anyone, anywhere dressed in service uniform on the film!
1904
I think it's actually 1912, going by the British film Catalogue, but reissued in 1916 (whatever that means)
books.google.co.uk/books?id=1c7eCwAAQBAJ&lpg=RA1-PA183&ots=e7B5JwoMqD&dq=cornish%20riviera%201916&pg=RA1-PA183#v=onepage&q=cornish%20riviera%201916&f=false
The women's clothing and those of the little girls looked like those of the early 1900s than 1916.
This is not a fake film. Films have been made since the 1880s and the film of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was definitely genuine. Many of these old films have had colour added and the quality improved - for example the wonderful old films from Mitchell and Kenyon. These were discovered just by chance in an old warehouse in northern England which was due for demolition. These films which were made between 1900 and 1908 are genuine.
Beautiful
That was lovely. It must have been very hard to earn a living then. The children look happy enough. 😊😊😊😊🐱🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
It'll be just as hard to earn a living there after all this Covid BS is over.
@@gmc9451 and brexit
@The right honourable Matty Mc Hoon it's never difficult
I grew up in Texas in the states picking cotton at 8 years old being paid 5 cents a pound . but I was very happy ! I had decent clothes ( at least I thought they were ) decent food ( fox squirrel , rabbit , wild duck , fresh caught catfish , softshell turtle . fresh butchered pork and homemade sausage , and homemade bread ) . my cousins , mom , dad , grandparents , aunts and uncles . so , yes ! I was very happy . just as those children were. That's because we didn't know how to be unhappy . we cared about each other just as the people in that film cared about each other .they all came from the same village just as my people did . sure , there were disagreements between them sometimes , but don't ever let a stranger come between them there'll be hell to pay for certain !!!
@@GEOFF0906 There's more "lefties on the right side of the Tories hiding in the shadows"
The sad thing is those people being filmed would never know that 104 years later, future generations would be watching them on UA-cam. Imagine going back in time and telling all those chaps sat down near that hut in St Ives, they would probably chase you into the sea or have you locked up for lunacy or something.
Fabulous to see this kind of footage.
A pictorial step back in time.
So innocent with non of the complexity of 21st century pace.
Thanks for showing this to us all.😁👍
Yes I agree although back in 1916 sadly there were husbands getting drunk and beating up wives and child abuse so I am not so sure it was all innocent and lovely
@@janesmith9024 yes quite true, times may change, but behaviour and atitudes sometimes lag behind, even goes on today.
Mervyn Sands
Yes but they had poor sanitary conditions, questionable food quality, crap wages for working very long hours, no antibiotics and a very short life expectancy. I'll take the present over the past.
@@MrJimmytheweed yeah I know it you're right there.
But that was their time, now this is our time, it is what it is.
Life 'n' all.
No holiday homes there just working people.
Gareth Carberry. Yes indeed. No holidays for working folk back then. Makes you realise how lucky we are, doesn’t it?
@@billt1954 I'm corniche and iv not had a holiday for 15 year. 😒 some thing never change lol
Imagine going back in time to spend a week there. I bet the fresh fish and local produce was delicious.
@Pat Alessi and God forbid you should become ill. No NHS and medicines that could cause more harm than good.
It was i used to walk down to the fishing boats, most mornings . :>)
Stunning. The tide has come in and out every day since then.
that is a proper reality show no "strictly dancing" Ed Cornish born n breed,,,,,,
They lived a hard life.
You live the life you know. Progress does not mean that things get better, they just change.
@Slightly Bonkers a person's situation can become progressively worse.
Yes very Hard Life, Tough People, Most People lived hard a hard life back then.
@@stormytempest3907 When very young, my father only had shoes for wearing to school, the rest of the time it was bare feet. That was in London!
@Slightly Bonkers yes, so a person's situation can indeed become progressively worse. That statement in itself is not incorrect.
When everyone wore hats.
My late next door neighbour worked for a bank all his life, starting about 1918. On his first morning he turned up without a hat and the manager immediately sent him out of the bank and told him to go and buy a hat and never to come to work again not wearing one. Times have changed but when I visit my local library and see the pierced, tattooed unkempt assistants I wonder if the pendulum has swung too far!
@@r1273m it absolutely hasn't, not a bad thing that people can express themselves and aren't judged by superficial aesthetic conformity.
Jasperi Yeah, but making a hideous mockery of the human form definitely is going too far.
Oh! I'm so sorry. I just realized that's what you look like, isn't it?
lovely, thanks!
Im from. Cornwall. A beautiful video. Nice to see the beauty without the second homes and commercialism. The county has always been poor but breath taking.
Priceless...
A world without traffic lights. Now that is worth something.
terrible to think they are not with us anymore - captured on film
We, too, will shortly enough "not be with us any more."
Out and About once more into the furrows of time we fold
Thank you for this lovely footage. Made my night.
The sea looks the same.
Nah, never stays the same for a second!
Remarkable quality of photography for the era. That is the sharpest film I have ever seen from that period.
I agree it is very good quality. I wish the only known footage of Titanic only a few years ealier was as clear as this. Ive seen older films from the early 1900s that are remarkable, even photos from that period are on a parr with modern photography. Just shows quality was around back then only that the masses didnt have such good film cameras.
@@Embracing01 Still photography from the era or earlier using the wet collodion process and negatives as large as 11 x 14 inches can produce remarkable results. However to get this sort of definition from a 35mm movie frame of just 24 x 18mm and with the unreliable and inconsistent film speeds of the time, shows a very high level of skill.
It was filmed in 4k
@@wilsonlaidlaw I agree, but it shows the technology, or rather the resolution, has always been there just that good images could only be obtained by pro camera people. Today its easy for anyone to snap those images because digital cameras are relatively easy to use even with a DSLR, unless you're taking photos with fast shutter speeds, etc that require abit of knowledge.
You think that humanity is moving toward a peak?🤣
Tell me if you can please how with horse or oxen and cart the settlers of Utah built the temple in salt lake city around 1870s.
Can we cut granite like that now?
Seems to be an awful lot of youngish men around for it to be the middle of WW1 . Earlier i suspect .
The blurb explained it at the top, fisherman and sailors etc being exempt from the draft.
Spent alot of my childhood down there in the 60's ,70's all way to almost twenty years since i was there, its amazing to see it in those days;way before i was born,you've done an excellent job😃👍🎥🎬📹
Bay full of boats... you look out there now I guarantee it would be virtually empty.
Yep! You only see the migrants now
l am proud to be Cornish
Nevermind
As you've every right to be. From an equally proud Ulsterman.
Jack have you ever heard of Rick Rescorla? A very interesting story of a brave Cornishman.
@Capo di tutti capi well, I'll be! Thanks for the reply. I had a look at the monument online and please pay my respects to Mr Rescola when you next pass it. If you please. Hayle looks 'gurt lush' a bit like Topsham in Devon, which we like very much indeed, on the river Ex near Exeter, Exmouth and Lympstone. Might have to visit one day and pay my respects too. All the best to you from Sussex.
From Charlestown?
Look at the steam crane (?) at 2:15
I just love Cornwall!
St Ives seemed the liveliest atmosphere. The young lady with her easel created a lot of interest, especially from the two men who, @3.26, appeared to 'want a word' with her, and then maybe decided to come back after the camera had stopped!
which two men? all I can see is men in the background none are approaching the lady.
@@dfjtobin @3.26, on the right. Whilst the men on the bench are innocently posing for a painting, these two shady looking characters, who are known to the local constabulary, are making a bee line for the unsuspecting artist who, rumour has it, comes from London. Realizing they are being recorded on an early example of security camera, they stop, casually turn and swagger off, deciding to come back under cover of night. (The 5 youngsters who appear stage left, see this suspicious behaviour and decide to follow them, were to become Enid Blyton's Famous Five.) It all seems perfectly obvious to me, Daniel.
Sounds a daft & very obvious thing to say but the waves still move & swell in the same way onto the rocks under Porth Island, as they do today & have for millennia.. It would sound just as they do now too..
Well the laws of the universe don’t change
The view of the Lizard point at 2:57 is prior to the lifeboat station built in 2014 which was at 90 degrees to the building shown (was this a lifeboat station??) and had a slipway into the sea
All those young men and boys destined to be cannon fodder, I wonder how many survived?
More important is that with the coming great reset and agendas being played out via covid disinformation, how many of us will survive?
Life was very hard for people in these fishing villages. My mother in law grew up in Mevagissey. Lost 2 brothers to the cliffs while collecting gull eggs.
I love seeing the old streets and stoney cobble roads. The boy at the begining is doing that hand to nose thing I've seen in another old film on here. I used to do it as a child.
Everyone wearing hats or caps!
Lot of seagulls back then.
Maybe some of the old people in this video spoke Cornish, or remembered people speaking it.
Not too likely. Dolly Pentreath (the last native speaker of Cornish) died in 1777 and people's memories are a bit shorter than that.
@@samp9539 Have a look at the Wikipedia page for Pentreath. It says that she actually wasn't the last native speaker.
Dolly Pentreath was the last native speaker who (so legend has it) knew no English beyond a few words.
Even 100 years ago most folk not in the professional classes used many more dialect words/phrases in their English than today. These were carried over from Cornish, and of course spoken in the sing-song accent, some folk no doubt sounded pretty un-English to visitors!
I grew up in fowey in the 70s it wasn’t that different. Makes me homesick
I lived and grew up in Polruan until I was 27, moved about 6 years ago. Would never move back.
This looks like an amazing working fishing town with all the charming old world characters to go with the scenery. The 100 ft tall palm trees @ 4:16 were a surprise though, thought this was England's south west coast.
Mild Winters, look at say Tresco Gardens, Scilly for sights of palm trees (date palms etc), my neighbour has a Canary date palm in their front garden, and I'm in land in Bodmin.
Looks like Morrab Gardens Penzance.
The dog in the film is now probably dead
This was filmed during WW1. I wonder how many of the children lost fathers and the women husbands and sons. Imagine going from a peaceful Cornish fishing village, which is the only life you would have known, to the horrors of the front line.
Gary Compton most men were fishermen so did not get called up
@@johnfebaines Interesting. Thanks for that.
The bit entitled the Lizard could be earlier than 1916, that is if the film is the cove below the most Southernly point. I was there three weeks ago and have been visiting for 45 years. The now disused life boat station was built in 1914 and is none existent in the film. The rock formations and the path down looks the same but there is no fine grit beach in the film. That detail doesn't concern me too much as the beaches often shift in winter storms. I have known Nanjizal beach disappear in winter altogether. The top of the cliff looks like it does today.
The film was released or "re-issued" in 1916 seems to have caused a mix up. Some say, that it's filmed as early as 1904 but no later than 1912.
Shame they didn't have sound in those days - would love to hear their voices.
They had sound, just no microphone to record it! 😂
On a serious note, 1916 was also the same year the condenser microphone was invented, just a year or a few later and this could have been recorded with sound 😯
This was Uther Pendragon's land.
Imagine living in a village and never seeing any other places or other people for your entire life! We are so lucky to be able to travel around the country and the world.
Is that you, Dominic?
This film is dated 1916. Some of those men look to be of military age. Why aren’t they in uniform?
0:10 i m pretty sure it is a muslim shop by the name of "Abdulla" or Abdullah based on the sign hung outside a shophouse on the right side.
I've never seen so many people smile at the same time before
Not really changed much has it (apart from it now being in colour of course)?
were the summers that effing cold? all the vintage film has folk dressed up for winter every day
*Nostalgia is not what it used to be I recall.*
What about sincerity? If you can fake that you're made !
Fascinating. Great video 👌....thought there might have been a Cornish pastie or two thrown in though 🥟😀
They would have been down the mines, crusts thrown for the cornish pixies
Cornwall 2016
It was very remote....difficult to get to so people rarely left and probably no such thing as holiday makers....first time my family went ....travelling from the Midlands it took 2 days 😟
Beautiful Cornwall. Land of buxom women with angel faces. Thick cream and butter. Fresh air and everything beautiful and feminine.
This is fascinating film. Not cinematically amazing, but a representation of our history which is worth watching if for no other reason to help us see a small window of how our forebears lived.
The idea of our national history and identity today is complex, a messy beast of a thing with tales of heroism and disaster and everything in between.
The people pictured in these films lived both as do we. ‘We’ is not just white Christians, it never has been, so when ‘patriots’ claim these images of history for their own racially exclusive, intolerance, I implore you to think on who would use their keyboards to frame the people in these films as true Brits.
I may be wrong, but I think the people in these films would see unkindness for what it is. That British working people didn’t used to equate success with intolerance.
And they definitely didn’t do it on social media.
Why are people screaming about terrorists here on the comments of a film of Cornwall from 100 years ago? Is it that the comments are visionary? Or is it just they own a keyboard and have nothing better to do? Maybe they should go fishing.
This couldn't of been film in 1916 it couldn't of been you realize this is supose to be filmed during the first world war I mean the state of the world then all the men or most of the men and boys would have been called up or volunteered surely some of them would be in army uniform I mean the film shows like thers no war or anything going on this film had to be had filmed early 1900s or way before
Back when there were plenty of fish in the sea and fished sustainably
Actually, no. The peak year for the fishing take was 1888 and stocks were already in steep decline when this was filmed. Basically, fish are really easy to catch and as boats got better at going further and gear got better at reaching the depths, they were wiped out. What we get out of the oceans now is basically a rounding error compared to what people in the past took out without a thought about sustainability.
Beautifully filmed! Well composed scenes, long takes, slow pans and something happening in each shot taken from a stable tripod - modern film makers, take note! Also, good to see a restoration which didn't remove fine detail and ruin it with "music".
Could this contain one of the first ever You've Been Framed clips - the chap throwing a stick in the sea at Penzance? I wonder if they got £250...send it in to Harry Hill quick!
Everything looks bleaker in black and white
David Greenwood. Cornwall was all black and white until 1945. So was the rest of the country.
This would be an excellent candidate to be colorized, cleaned up, and digitized to be 60 frames a second..... It also would be great for a cameraman to revisit, and re-shoot the same locations today
Explained to my grandchildren that the world used to be black and white and that only for two generations has it been in full dazzling colour. ( that many places in the world still live in black and white)
Absolutely marvelous; like Frank Sutcliffe's photographs of Whitby (a generation earlier and at the other end of the country), brought to life. Bred them tough, back in the day.
Marvelous! The correct speed, quality good for the period, and you haven't fallen for the modern tendency to add false sound. As authentic as it's possible to be. Well done!
Wow I love Cornwall go to Fowey and Looe every year have family there it's my favourite place on earth ❤️❤️❤️
Just amazing, those children playing on that boat, looked sooo poor yet they were playing soo happily, they new no different Godbless you sweet darlings x
I lived there, but not in 1916....mind you, hasn't changed much AT ALL...only the people.
Its still very recognisable. The buildings, streets, coastline and landscape haven't changed much.
These pictures so help to form an image in the minds eye when reading novels of the era. They enhance the reading experience and lock in the writing.
Hard life in a beautiful place, another world. A cinema travelogue from the silent film era.
Absolutely wonderful. I really enjoyed watching this. Thank you.
Interesting in that all the boats are sail , no power boats
I wonder if anyone in this video is still alive today?
What great footage - glad I was able to see it. Thank you! BFI.
El bote de 0,25 segundos y los del fondo, se sostienen en seco igual que las dornas de las Rías Baixas.
Can you imagine how life must have been then , look at todays bizarre world
The chap at 1 minute 30 winding up the dog did make me laugh. Thanks for posting 👍👍
So sad to see poor old European country's. ... from uk.
Much different now, staggering amount of housing being built around the towns, god only knows what those who end up in them will do for a living- jobs hard to come by, I think they are aimed at the people leaving the city’s in droves, and no doubt, second home owners.
A great video, loved it xxx
I don't think the French Riviera would have feared any loss of visitors as a result of this 'Cornish Riviera' film!
But it's good to see the film now.
They wouldn't have been in direct competition anyway, because at this time that part of the S. of France was only considered a fashionable winter resort, not a summer one. It being considered a place for summer holidays only happened later.
Well worth doing a digital clean up, great footage, thanks.