Pubs and bars

Restaurants & Eating Places

The pubs and bars of St Agnes.

There are 12 pubs and bars in the Parish.

Grouped by pub owner/brewery (and with the names of their tenants or owners) they are:

Punch Taverns

The Peterville Inn, St Agnes                      Charles & Laura                 

The Railway, St Agnes                               Ivor & Samantha                 

The Miners’ Arms, Mithian                           Ivor & Samantha 

The Red Lion, Blackwater                           Malcolm

The Chiverton Arms, Nr A30                        Roger & Julia

Free Houses

The Victory, Mingoose/Porthtowan             Rob & Sharon                    

The Old School Pub, Mount Hawke              Ian & Rose

Blue Bar, Porthtowan                                   Consortium

Tap House, St Agnes                                   Tim

Driftwood Spars, St Agnes                          Louise              

St Austell Brewery

St Agnes Hotel                                               Tina                                 

Coastal & Country

The Unicorn, Porthtowan                                 Dean & Angie

Until about 17 years ago we typically thought in terms of pubs being owned either privately, i.e. free houses, or by breweries. Then, under the Beer Orders of 1989, the Government capped the number of pubs a brewery could own. The intention was to permit open competition but as the same restriction was not applied to non-brewery owners of pubs it simply created the opportunity for entrepreneurs to build up huge holdings of pubs.

One such is Punch Taverns. Punch is not a brewery so the beer orders do not apply, a fact that can be inferred from the number of pubs owned by Punch: 9,556 leased and managed pubs as at 4th March 2006. An example of a more modest holding is St Austell Brewery which was established in the 1860s by Walter Hicks and today owns 163 pubs, mainly in Cornwall with a few in Devon.

In the 2006 AA Pub Guide, 80 Cornish pubs were of a quality good enough to make the AA listings. Most of them had the brewer or owner identified; where this information was not given, we resorted to phone calls and soon filled in all but five of the gaps, giving us a base of 75.

Of these, 45 are free houses (60%). The next largest group represents 19 pubs (25%) owned by St Austell Brewery. That leaves no more than 11 pubs (15%) owned by others (including Punch).

Clearly, as a category, free houses are well ahead in the quality stakes. St Agnes has five free houses and one pub owned by St Austell Brewery.

Restaurants & Eating Places

Sally's Bistro – Restaurant, 40 Vicarage Road, St Agnes

St Agnes Meadery, Vicarage Road, St Agnes

The Rosewoods – Restaurant, Rosemundy House Hotel, St Agnes

Cornwall Café, 42 Vicarage Road, St Agnes

St Agnes Fission Chip Shop, Churchtown Square, St Agnes

China Palace, Peterville, St Agnes

The Spindrift Restaurant, Driftwood Spars, Trevaunance Cove, St Agnes

Schooners Bistro, Trevaunance Cove, St Agnes

Valley Restaurant, Rose in Vale Country House, Mithian

Avalon, Echo Corner, Coast Road, Porthtowan

Flaming Wok, Mile Hill, Porthtowan