Newquay – A True Atlantic Ocean Surf Town!

Surfing Capital of the UK

Newquay is a cliff-top town on the north coast of Cornwall. It has nine golden sand surf beaches and was always destined to become an ocean playground!

Newquay Beaches - 1920s [#33] — Newquay Beaches – 1920s [#33]

Historically it was a fishing village called Towan Blystra, where the Cornish were fisher-folk who caught pilchards for their livelihood.

Later it received a new harbour quay to provide more shelter from the big storm waves of the Atlantic. To celebrate this the rapidly growing town was renamed “Newquay.”

In 1876 a passenger railway line was built to Newquay by the Great Western Railway. This brought the first pioneering holiday makers. These rich city-dwellers walked the cliffs and swam the beaches, then built cliff-top summer villas. They were the town’s first tourists. Over the next 70 years many thousands would follow!

The first surf riding emerged when ‘bellyboards’ were pioneered in 1919 on this wave-struck coastline. It involved riding prone on a short wooden board pushed by the broken white water waves near the shore. By the 1950s there were hundreds of practitioners on Newquay beaches on the best days.

The first example of stand-up surfing in Europe was practised in Newquay by local born Pip Staffieri in 1939. From his research and hand skills he built a 14ft. hollow wooden surfboard of innovative Californian design. He rode solo in Newquay bay. The immediate distraction of WW2 meant no one copied his example!

Surfing really arrived in town in 1963 when four overseas lifeguards, from Australia and USA, arrived on the sands carrying modern foam and fibreglass Malibu surfboards. They entered the water and rode waves standing on the boards. Many were amazed at this vision … and wanted to try it!

Pip Staffieri rides waves in Newquay - 1939 [#23]

Pip and his hollow, wooden surfboard - 1939 [#24]

Guys on a wave - 1963 [#25]

Solo Surfer rides the white water - 1963 [#26]

By 1965 Great Western beach had become the main focus of Newquay’s cult surfing community. Bill Bailey, a former engineer, was not only the beach lifeguard but also the most skilled surfboard builder in town. He had a vision to build many more surfboards!

Bailey, with business partners, created the European Surfing Company in Newquay which progressed to build over a thousand ‘Bilbo’ surfboards to progress the sport in the UK and Europe.

Newquay Grammar School, in 1968, was the first school in Britain to include surfing on its summer curriculum for those pupils who owned their own surfboards. The school was only five minutes from the beach!

In the 1970s Malibu’s disappeared and shortboards became the equipment norm. This enabled experienced surfers to be far more manoeuvrable on the wave face but newcomers found it harder to learn. Newquay was leading the way!

Fistral Beach - 1971

It was contests that really defined surfing as a competitive sport. This attracted the public as spectators and the media (press/TV) chasing a new sports story. Who was the best surfer?

1990s Surfing. Spencer Hargreaves takes air! [#32]

Amateur contests had started in the 1960s. However, it was in 1982 the Newquay Surf Classic Pro Am, with main sponsors The Newquay Surfing Centre (Stuart Keogh) and Gul Wetsuit, offered money prizes, making it one of the first international competitive Pro-Am surfing event in the UK. By the mid-80s Fistral Beach had become the established venue for the newly created World Tour of Surfing Professionals (ASP). This brought the best surfers in the world to ride British waves. Newquay was now being highlighted on national media as the capital of UK surfing!

In 1986 the World Amateur Surfing Championships was hosted for the first time in Europe, at Fistral Beach. It involved thirteen competing nations, consisting of 200 contestants, for a whole week of surfing. Australia won!

The Offshore Surfing School emerged in the late 80s on Newquay’s Tolcarne Beach. It was the prototype example of this concept. Tuition and lifeguarding enabled men, women and children to find a safe and effective way to learn how to ride waves. It’s example spread over the next twenty years through Britain and Europe!

An estimated 35 million ‘surfers’ are active in the world’s oceans now. Certainly for Newquay the attraction of surfing has swollen the visitor numbers over the last four decades and created a surfing industry which has generated hundreds of millions of pounds. It has become an important part of the economic lifeblood of the coastal community!

Surfing, now a global sport, has key destinations in different parts of the world. Newquay is one of those key destinations in Europe, confirming it’s title earned over the last sixty years :

“Newquay – the surfing capital of the UK.”

Continue the story ...

The above is a short extract of a larger, more in-depth history of surfing in Newquay.