St Ives picturesque harbour is to this day a working harbour where fishing boats bob on the tide. The harbour is sheltered from westerly and northerly winds by Smeaton’s Pier, built in 1770 to the design of John Smeaton, the engineer responsible for the original Eddystone Lighthouse.

A Lighthouse was added to Smeaton’s Pier in 1831 and plans for an outer harbour led to the building of a wooden pier to the north of Smeaton’s Pier in the 1860’s. This structure did not withstand the battering of north-easterly gales and was soon destroyed and wooden stumps can still be seen today.

On the south side of the harbour opposite Smeaton’s Pier is a shorter quay known as West Pier built in 1894. At the entrance to West Pier stands the modern lifeboat house, a constant reminder of St Ives great tradition of lifesaving at sea. Because of the tidal nature of St Ives harbour, the lifeboat is kept on a wheeled cradle. When the lifeboat is called out at high tide the cradle is manoeuvred by tractor down the slipway and into the water. At low tide the cradle is taken across the sand and is pushed into the sea to where the water is deep enough for the lifeboat to float. This procedure is easily viewed from Wharf Road and is always an impressive sight.