Prior to the rebuilding of
the old pier at the end of the sixteenth century, Newquay was known as Towan
Blistra with pilchard fishing as the backbone of the community. A relic of
these very different times is the 'huers hut', a small whitewashed building on Towan Head from which a continual lookout was kept for the
all-important pilchard shoals. In Victorian times, the harbour
was enlarged and a railway built primarily for the exportation of china clay.
Shipbuilding too was an important industry for a century or more. Today the
cliff-top town of