Newquay

 ( Towns In Cornwall ) 

The inn was rebuilt in 1859, and was known as the Commercial Inn until early in the 20th century.

"Passed the Ganel and went about a mile further to a place of about twelve houses called Towan Blystra, a furlong further to the New Quay in St Columb Parish, here is a little pier, the north point of which is fixed on a rock, the end in a cliff; at the eastern end there is a gap cult cut about 25feet wide into the slaty rock of the cliff: This gap lets small ships into a basin which may hold about six ships of about 80tons burthen and at spring tides has 18feet of water in it, upon the brow of the cliff is a dwelling house and a commodious cellar lately built."

In 1832 the London-based entrepreneur Richard Lomax bought the manor of Towan Blystra. This included the small harbour at what was becoming known as New Quay.

The proposal included a description of New Quay and Towan and the unpaved track between the settlements. It also showed some buildings including an inn, (this was rebuilt in 1859 and is now known as The Central), cottages along what would become Bank Street and other structures connected with the fishing industry, such as the cellars, where the fish were dried and packed in barrels. Lomax began the construction of the north and south quay, but he died in 1837 before his harbour had been completed.

The harbour was at its most prosperous in the 25years following its purchase in the 1870s by the Cornwall Minerals Railway. In 1872 the middle jetty was added to expand capacity.

To the north of the harbour there were Fish collar in the 19th century, where pilchards were salted and packed in casks. The two remaining areas are Fly cellars and Active cellars, although the others have disappeared.

A mansion called the Tower was built for the Molesworth family in 1835: it included a castellated tower and a private chapel as they were Roman Catholics and no church for that denomination existed in the area. The Tower later became the golf club house.Pevsner, N. (1970) Cornwall; 2nd ed. Penguin Books; p. 126 After the arrival of passenger trains in June 1876, the town started to develop with many rows of private houses and hotels began to emerge.

At the time of the First World War the last buildings at the edge of the town were a little further along present-day Narrowcliff. Post-war development saw new houses and streets built in the Chester Road area, accompanied by ribbon development along the country lane which led to St Columb Minor, some away. This thoroughfare was modernised and named Henver Road, also some time in the 1930s. Development continued in this direction until the Second World War, by which time much of Henver Road had houses on both sides, with considerable infilling also taking place between there and the sea.

A thriving knitting industry became established in Newquay in the early part of the 20th century. In 1905, Madame Hawke began selling machine-knitted garments in a shop in the centre of the town. Debenhams was sent a sample of her work and commissioned her as a supplier. She opened a factory in Crantock Street, which has since been converted into housing. Several competing knitting companies were also set up in the town in this period.

In the early 1950s, the last houses were built along Henver Road. After that, there was a virtually continuous building line on both sides of the main road from the other side of St Columb Minor right into the town centre. The Doublestiles estate to the north of Henver Road was also built in the early 1950s, as the name of Coronation Way indicates, and further development continued beyond, becoming the Lewarne Estate and extending the built up area to the edges of Porth.

Other areas also developed in the period between the wars were Pentire (known for a time as West Newquay) and the Trenance Valley. Other streets dating from the 1920s included St Thomas Road, which provided the approach to the town's new cottage hospital at its far end, to be followed by others in the same area near the station, such as Pargolla Road.

More recent development has been on a larger scale: until the late 1960s, a passenger arriving by train would not have seen a building by the line (with the exception of Trencreek village) until the Trenance Viaduct was reached. Today, the urban area starts a good inland from the viaduct. Other growth areas have been on the fringes of St Columb Minor and also towards the Gannel. More development beyond Treninnick, south of the Trenance Valley, has taken the urban area out as far as Lane, where more building is now under way. The Trennnick/Treloggan development, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, included not merely housing but also an industrial estate and several large commercial outlets, including a major supermarket and a cash and carry warehouse.

The first phase of a new Duchy of Cornwall development began to be built in 2012 at Tregunnel Hill, which was sometimes unofficially called Surfbury after the similar Poundbury development in Dorset. It has 174 houses of traditional designs.

There is now a similar but much more substantial development in progress inland, and construction on a large site known as Nansledan ('broad valley' in Cornish) is now well under way, mainly west of the Quintrell Road. Plans were approved for the development of 800homes at Nansledan in December 2013, but the plan now includes more than 4,000homes, shops, a supermarket, church and a 14-classroom primary school which opened to its first pupils in September 2019. Following the example set at Tregunnel Hill, the buildings are again of traditional designs and all street names are in Cornish.

Places like Trencreek, Porth and St Columb Minor have long since become suburbs of Newquay: it had been reported that it was possible that by the 2030s, should present development trends continue, the south eastern edge of the town could stretch beyond the present boundary set by Nansledan and encompass Quintrell Downs, from the town centre. However, the Newquay Neighbourhood Development Plan, which was approved in a referendum held on 6 April 2019, said it was important to retain a 'green buffer' between Newquay and Quintrell Downs.

In April 2012, the Aerohub enterprise zone for aerospace businesses was set up at Newquay Airport. In September 2014, the UK's Homes and Communities Agency and the European Regional Development Fund agreed to fund the construction of a £6million Aerohub Business Park there. A plan to launch space vehicles from a new spaceport alongside the airport moved ahead in July 2018, when a contract was signed with Virgin Orbit. The first launch from the spaceport, named Spaceport Cornwall, took place on 9 January 2023. The initial launch of the LauncherOne rocket from the carrier aircraft, Cosmic Girl, was successful but the rocket's second stage suffered an anomaly and the vehicle and payload satellites failed to reach orbit.

The Member of Parliament for St Austell and Newquay is Noah Law (Labour), who won the seat in the General Election of 4 July 2024. The previous MP was Steve Double (Conservative) who had been MP for the constituency since it was created in 2010. He was re-elected in 2015 and 2019.

The urban district was enlarged in 1902 and 1934; the 1934 expansion included taking in the neighbouring villages of Crantock and St Columb Minor. In 1957 the urban district council moved its headquarters to the former Manor hotel on Marcus Hill, which became known as the Municipal Buildings.

Newquay Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, when the area became part of the new borough of Restormel. The area of the former Newquay Urban District became an unparished area as a result of the 1974 reforms. Two new parishes were subsequently created covering the former Newquay Urban District in 1983; Crantock and Newquay. The parish council for Newquay declared that parish to be a town, allowing it to take the name Newquay Town Council and letting the chairperson of the council take the title of mayor.

Restormel was abolished in 2009. Cornwall Council then took on district-level functions, making it a unitary authority, and was renamed Cornwall Council.

During the 20th century, the town developed in sections, Trenance Leisure Gardens are in a wooded, formerly marshy valley on the quieter edge of Newquay, stretching down to the Gannel Estuary. From the Edwardian era it provided recreation for tourists with walks, tennis courts and a bowling green. The gardens are spanned by a stone railway viaduct which was rebuilt just before the Second World War. The boating lake was dug during the depression of the 1930s, as a work creation scheme. In the late 1960s, further enterprises were established by the council, including mini-golf, a swimming pool, the Little Western Railway miniature railway which opened in 1968 and Newquay Zoo, which opened in 1969.

Newquay was also known for the "Run to the Sun" event, which began on Fistral Beach in 1987 and then took place for many years during the public holiday on the last weekend in May at Trevelgue Holiday Park. People visited the town in Volkswagen camper vans, Volkswagen Beetles and other custom cars. The last RTTS took place in 2014, but in 2023, it was announced that the event would return on 27 May to a new site at St Mawgan, just outside Newquay.

Other events in recent times have included the large Boardmasters music festival, which attracts another 50,000 visitors over one weekend in early August and is held on sites at Watergate Bay (outside the urban area) and Fistral Beach. Cornwall Pride moved to Newquay from Truro in 2017, and this took place in 2018 on the last Saturday in August.

The South West Coast Path runs through the town.