The Fair at Penzance

Despite being an extremely competent artist in her own right, Alethea is often overshadowed by her father Norman Garstin, who was the artist responsible for one of Penzance's most famous pictures 'The Rain it Raineth Every Day".

In this busy fairground scene, we can see two showmen's traction engines, a carousel and boat swings, with further attractions in the background. Although undated, it was probably painted in the 1920s when fairs such as these were enormously popular. Penzance Corpus Christi Fair, traditionally held on Midsummer Day at the Princess May Recreation Ground was one of the West’s great events and attracted many thousands of people from a wide area. This painting and contemporary photographs of the fairs held in Penzance’s Morrab Library illustrate what great occasions they were. The name inscribed on the engine in the foreground of the painting is indistinct, but we can read '& Sons, Bristol.' Some of the great travelling showman's families who came to Penzance were Hancocks, Jones and Anderson & Rowland.