Visiting St Agnes for the First Time: What to Know

Short answer: St Agnes is two places: the village up top (Churchtown and Vicarage Road, with the bakery, cafés and pubs) and Trevaunance Cove, its beach, a mile down a steep road. Along the cliffs are Wheal Coates engine houses, Chapel Porth and St Agnes Beacon, all National Trust. Park at Reppers Coombe above the cove: it's free from November to March and still takes cash.

St Agnes was a mining village, and the clifftops still show it: engine houses, spoil heaps turned to heather, and paths that follow old tramways. Today it's one of the north coast's favourite villages, with good food and three very different beaches.

What is St Agnes known for?

• Mining. Copper, tin and arsenic were mined here until the 1920s; at its peak about 100 mines employed 1,000 miners. The area is the St Agnes Mining District of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site.
• Wheal Coates. The clifftop engine houses above Chapel Porth, one of the most photographed mine sites in Cornwall.
• Poldark. Many of Ross Poldark's clifftop gallops were filmed above Chapel Porth.
• The Stippy Stappy. An 18th-century row of stepped cottages off Town Hill, built when St Agnes still had a working harbour.
• Pasties. The St Agnes Bakery queue at lunchtime says it all.

How is St Agnes laid out?

The village sits up top around Churchtown and Vicarage Road. Trevaunance Cove is at the end of Quay Road, about a mile north and steeply downhill, with no pavement for much of the way. Chapel Porth and Wheal Coates are about two miles south-west by road.

Where to park

Reppers Coombe, the Cornwall Council car park above Trevaunance Cove, is free from 1 November to 31 March and is one of the car parks that still takes cash. In the village, Trelawney Road car park is the handiest. Full prices: St Agnes parking guide.

What to do

• Walk to Wheal Coates and Chapel Porth, then have a "hedgehog" ice cream.
• Climb St Agnes Beacon for views from St Ives to Bodmin Moor.
• Spend a morning at Trevaunance Cove, or try a surf lesson.
• The free St Agnes Museum on a wet day: St Agnes rainy day.

Where to eat

Pasties from the St Agnes Bakery, breakfast at one of the cafés, and a pint at the Driftwood Spars, which brews its own: best pubs in St Agnes.

Getting there without a car

Go Cornwall Bus route 87 (Truro – St Agnes – Perranporth – Newquay) runs about hourly in the daytime, stopping in the village. There's no bus down to the cove or Chapel Porth.

Times, prices and dates are the businesses' and organisers' to change — check before you travel. Spotted something we've got wrong? Tell us and we'll fix it.