It's not often you get something for nothing these days... not so in Newquay, even the deckchairs are free for you to stretch out on whilst you listen to the free entertainment by the Lanner and District Silver Band.

With the band situated in the purpose built band stand you are free to set up your deckchair or simply take a place on the grass overlooking the fantastic cornish seas.  Whether you are on holiday or a local you cannot help but be taken aback by the views.

The name Killacourt may be a corruption of the Celtic Killas, meaning grove and Quoit, meaning burial place.  The trees were removed in the late 1920's to afford an uninterrupted view to the sea. The view from the Killacourt, with its ornamental flower beds and millenium sundial hadn't changed in thousands of years. 

During the nineteenth century Newquay grew into a thriving community and the activities on Towan beach below were very different from those of today. The sea has always been important to the people of Newquay.  Before the coming of railways and tourism, the town's wealth came from:  farming, mining, boat building, seafaring and fishing.  Boats were built at the Island end of Towan beach. Fish cellars, where freshly caught pilchards were salted and packed into barrels, fringed the town.  Although no longer to be seen, some of their names live on.

Whilst you enjoy the music of the Lanner and District Silver Band try to imagine the beach below you in the mid 1800's.  Old women in shawls carrying baskets of fish, others carrying bundles of washing, old men struggling with sacks of coal for the laundry boilers, young men hauling boats onto the beach, mothers and daughters gutting and salting fish.  The noise of sawing and hammering from the boat yard, the relentless pounding and throbbing of the laundry steam engines; the hot, well smell from the laundry and the distinctive aroma of fish being carried on the breeze.  A community working together.

In front of you you will see Jago's Island.  There has been a dwelling on this island from the turn of the twentieth century.  Its many occupants have included Dr O'Flaherity, a reclusive Irish Canadian eccentric whose haunting organ music, carried on the night air, could be heard throughout the occupant, Alexander Lodge, the inventor of the Lodge Sparking Plug.  His father, Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, who wrote widely on the connection between science and religion, especially spiritualism, was a frequent visitor as was his friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories.