Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden

The Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden preserves the studio in Trewyn where Hepworth lived and worked from 1949 until her death in 1975. Administered by Tate St Ives, it is one of the most moving artistic spaces in Britain.

The garden is small — just a quarter of an acre — but densely planted and filled with Hepworth's bronze and stone sculptures arranged as she wanted them, in dialogue with the plants, the changing light, and each other. Inside the studio, her tools lie where she left them, her overalls hang on the door, and the workbench carries the marks of decades of carving. The combination of intimate domestic space and large abstract sculpture is unlike anything else. Book tickets in advance in summer — it is popular and visitor numbers are restricted.

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A story
Hepworth died in a fire in her studio in 1975 and left instructions that it should be preserved as a working studio. The National Trust and Tate have maintained it almost exactly as it was when she died, including the tools she used and the half-finished work on her bench — which gives the place an eerie, still-inhabited quality unlike any formal museum.