AN initiative involving the National Trust, the National School of Blacksmithing and two local enthusiasts has seen the installation of a classic West Penwith gate on Carn Gloose Road, near St Just. 

The initiative grew out of a collaboration between documentary film maker Mick Catmull and artist blacksmith Peter Parkinson who met whilst volunteering for the former Penwith Landscape Partnership project, where Mick was much taken with Peter’s enthusiasm for the Penwith Gate, and agreed to make a film about this ancient rural artefact.

The West Penwith gate design, in use for at least 145 years, is commonplace throughout West Cornwall and uses a clever and robust design featuring flat and round bars connected by screw threads and nuts, with the added flourish of decorative scrolls on top of the gate. The earliest photograph showing a West Penwith gate is dated from the 1880s.

Mick and Peter enquired whether the National Trust would be interested in commissioning an exact replica, to be installed on NT land, from the National School of Blacksmithing in Holme Lacy, Herefordshire, where a group of enthusiastic students were keen to forge the gate by following a classic pattern, drawn by Peter, using traditional blacksmithing techniques. 

Peter said: “The West Penwith Gate is a gem hidden in plain sight, seen by many, but not acknowledged for what it is – an elegant, clever and intriguing design. With a utilitarian function, why would a farm gate need decorative scrolls? My answer to that is traditional blacksmithing pride, that wouldn’t leave bars just cut off square, without some form of decoration.”

A 45-minute documentary film about the project behind the West Penwith gate has been collaboratively created by Peter and Mick and will be released for public viewing at Newlyn Filmhouse, details of which are still to be confirmed.