a town on the coast of Cornwall in south-west England. It is popular with tourists, and several well-known artists have lived there, including Bernard Leach (1887–1979), Barbara Hepworth , Ben Nicholson and Patrick Heron (1920–99). A branch of Tate Britain opened in St Ives in 1993. The town is also mentioned in a traditional nursery rhyme:
As I was going to St Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits;
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to Saint Ives? (The answer is one, since the man and his wives, etc. were going the other way.).