The Cornish Riviera (1916) 

Stunning. The tide has come in and out every day since then.

What a brilliant time capsule, fantastic. I wish the sea was as plastic-free now, as it was then.

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.

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

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!

LOVE this! It's where my beloved grandmother grew up and I can imagine her there around that time!

Remarkable quality of photography for the era. That is the sharpest film I have ever seen from that period.

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.

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.

It's so weird recognising places I've been from over 100 yr ago that have barely changed!

Priceless...

Imagine going back in time to spend a week there. I bet the fresh fish and local produce was delicious.

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.😁👍

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!

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.

I've never seen so many people smile at the same time before

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😃👍🎥🎬📹

Thank you for this lovely footage. Made my night.

They lived a hard life.

I just love Cornwall!

That was lovely. It must have been very hard to earn a living then. The children look happy enough. 😊😊😊😊🐱🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The sad thing is those people being filmed would never know that 104 years later, future generations would be watching them on RU-vid. 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.

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.

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.

I grew up in fowey in the 70s it wasn’t that different. Makes me homesick

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.

I have tears in my eyes. Innocence lost in the name of affluence. No more community. How much can I get is the mantra.

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!

terrible to think they are not with us anymore - captured on film

*Nostalgia is not what it used to be I recall.*

Absolutely great video. Thank you so much for posting.

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.

Aarh Cornwall....before it was over hyped, made expensive and overrun by Londons affluent elite.

What great footage - glad I was able to see it. Thank you! BFI.

Fascinating insight into how life once was.

Wow I love Cornwall go to Fowey and Looe every year have family there it's my favourite place on earth ❤️❤️❤️

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!

No holiday homes there just working people.

Absolutely wonderful. I really enjoyed watching this. Thank you.

When everyone wore hats.

Its still very recognisable. The buildings, streets, coastline and landscape haven't changed much.

Someone needs to make a comparison film!

The chap at 1 minute 30 winding up the dog did make me laugh. Thanks for posting 👍👍

Love the steam crane at 2:14!

This is incredible

It is an amazing video indeed.

Nice to see a tribute to that forgotten musical genre, Logan Rock.

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.

Hard life in a beautiful place, another world. A cinema travelogue from the silent film era.

l am proud to be Cornish

Beautiful

Thank you very much indeed.

A great video, loved it xxx

FANTASTIC. Thank YOU BFI...;-)

Back when you could row out and catch a feed of fish with your hand line.

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.

Great film , nicely put together. 👍

all the boats in st ives bay compared to now thnx for sharing

spectacular...I loved it...

Wonderful footage!

Great film. Enjoyed that.

The sea looks the same.

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".

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!

Wonderful. Thank you 😍

Fascinating. Great video 👌....thought there might have been a Cornish pastie or two thrown in though 🥟😀

Where only our rivers run free.

My Great Grand Father left St. Erth in 1885 (ish). I would like to go there .

Brilliant , I love these vids.

Look at the steam crane (?) at 2:15

Shame they didn't have sound in those days - would love to hear their voices.

lovely, thanks!

Wow thanks for sharing 👍

Life was hard, but simple then. No complications. Fascinating view of the past. Who would have thought that so many years into the future, we would all be under threat from a virus?

Beautiful l love this

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 😟

Well worth doing a digital clean up, great footage, thanks.

A world without traffic lights. Now that is worth something.

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.

Beautiful back in the day. Still very pretty

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.

Beautiful Cornwall. Land of buxom women with angel faces. Thick cream and butter. Fresh air and everything beautiful and feminine.

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

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

Bay full of boats... you look out there now I guarantee it would be virtually empty.

Everyone in awe/suspicious of the camera!

El bote de 0,25 segundos y los del fondo, se sostienen en seco igual que las dornas de las Rías Baixas.

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.

Cornwall 2016

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)

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..

Back when there were plenty of fish in the sea and fished sustainably

The Cornish Riviera...I'm not convinced.

one of the ways it was . . . .

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.