Princess Pavilion

Falmouth Town Council built the Princess Pavilion in 1910 as a concert hall, and Princess Alexandra of Teck opened it officially the following year. It stands on Melvill Road, on the rise between the town centre and Gyllyngvase beach, and it has been through several rounds of renovation since without losing the job it was built for.

The programme is broader than the Edwardian frontage suggests. Comedy names including Jack Dee and Joe Wilkinson have played here, as have The Libertines, The Orb and Grandmaster Flash, and the calendar carries touring theatre, local dance recitals and amateur musicals alongside the music. The venue also hosts the annual Falmouth Spring Flower Show and a Summer Sounds season of brass band and choral performances on the bandstand.

Gyllyngdune Gardens next door are the reason to arrive early. The Reverend Coope’s family created them in 1838 out of a quarry that had supplied stone for the family estate, and they carry the Victorian taste for oddities: a monolithic arch on a rise, a tunnel running down to the seafront, shell seats and a shell-encrusted grotto thought to have been decorated by Coope’s daughters. Falmouth Town Council bought the gardens in 1903 and opened them to the public in 1907. Entry is free.

The Garden Room Café serves locally sourced light lunches and doubles as a meeting space for knitting circles and support groups, which tells you how the building actually functions between shows. A path through the rose garden, past the grotto and the arch, comes out on the seafront with views to Pendennis Castle.

The council has been putting money in since taking over. In March 2024 it secured £190,000 from the Community Ownership Fund for solar panels and insulation to cut the building’s energy costs.

Box office is on 01326 211222. For a larger touring stage, Hall for Cornwall is about 12 miles north in Truro. More to see and do around the town is on the Falmouth page.