Padstow is a very old port town facing into the Camel Estuary (formerly Petrockstow after St Petroc). Possibly from as early as 2500 BC, Padstow has been used as a natural harbour, linking Brittany to Ireland along the Saints Way from Fowey. In the Middle Ages, it was known as Aldestowe (the "old place", to contrast with Bodmin, which was the new place). The Cornish name Lannwedhenek or Lodenek derives from the Lanwethinoc monastery that stood above the harbour in Celtic times.
Although most of the buildings in Padstow are from the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, the street pattern near the harbour dates from the mediaeval period.
The celebrity chef and presenter Rick Stein lives in, and is heavily invested in, the Padstow area. He began his culinary career by working in his parents' pub in Padstow. He later opened his own seafood restaurant in the town, which has since become a popular destination for food lovers. Stein has also opened several other restaurants in the town, as well as cookery schools and a seafood delicatessen. In addition to his successful culinary career, he has also written numerous cookery books and presented numerous television shows about food and travel.
At the time of writing, he and his (ex wife) business partner also owned a cluster of self-catering holiday cottages, a pub and 40 guest rooms. Unsurprisingly the magnitude of the enterprise within a relatively small area is controversial: Padstow is cynically referred to by some locals as "Padstein", whilst others point out his enterprises employ over 400 local people and potentially attract more visitors to Padstow than perhaps otherwise would have been the case. Either way, there are now lots of places to eat in Padstow.
The Golden Lion is the oldest inn in Padstow, dating back to the 14th century. Many sales of salvaged goods took place in the "Long Room" behind the Inn. During the May 1st Obby 'Oss festival, the Golden Lion acts as a "stable" for the Old 'Oss.
Mummer's Day is an ancient Cornish midwinter celebration that occurs every year on Boxing Day and New Year's Day in Padstow. It was originally part of the pagan midwinter celebrations where people all over Cornwall would guise dance ("geese dance") which involved disguising themselves by either wearing masks or blackening their faces. Jumping to the conclusion that the blackened faces are some kind of ethnic representation, a number of people have wrongly speculated that the event originated from freedoms being given to the occupants of passing slave ships which stopped in the port to allow slaves a bit of free time and space in the town. Consequently quite a lot of confusion has arisen in recent times, including an incorporation of "minstrel" songs into procession (which is thought to stem from support for the abolition of slavery from the Methodist movement). In recent years, Padstonians have worked to "de-clutter" the ceremony of this modern confusion, paring it back to the original traditional carols and using the name Mummer's Day.
Paul Ainsworth worked for Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing before opening his own restaurant named "Cornwall - No 6" in 2006 in Padstow with two friends.
The early days in Padstow were tough and despite empty tables and a slating from a London food blogger in the spring of 2007 on a visit to what he described as "Chelsea on Sea", Paul stuck it out and made the restaurant a success.
The restaurant's menu is designed to offer a different selection of local food to Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant, to complement rather than compete with it.
Paul bought his friends out in 2009 and took over the business with his wife, renaming the restaurant to "Paul Ainsworth at No 6". The restaurant went on to win a Michelin star in 2013 and the highest AA rating of 4 rosettes in 2016. The Good Food Guide went on to describe it as "Padstow's premier gastronomic address".
The annual Obby 'Oss (Hobby Horse) celebration in Padstow on 1st May is thought to be a relic of the Celtic Beltane festival marking the arrival of spring. It is among the oldest May day traditions in Europe.
The festival starts at midnight with singing of a traditional night song and by dawn the town is dressed in greenery, flowers and flags, and the maypole prepared. Two groups of dancers then precess through the town singing the traditional day song, with one member dressed as the 'Oss - a stylised horse costume with a black cape under which they attempt to catch young maidens in the town. It is thought that the origin of the maiden catching was to bring them "luck" (i.e. fertility).
The two 'osses are known as "Old" and "Blue Ribbon". The latter is a 19th century addition by the Temperance movement in an attempt to discourage the consumption of alcohol by the Old 'Oss followers, which has not been entirely successful! Each 'oss has a "stable" (the Golden Lion Inn for the Old 'Oss, and the Institute for the Blue Ribbon 'Oss) from which they emerge at the start of the day's proceedings and retire at the end.
There have been 3 churches on the site of St Petroc's in Padstow. The first, was built in the early 6th Century by Petroc and was destroyed in 981 by the Vikings. In the 12th Century, another church was built, which is thought might have been of sandstone and therefore didn't last long. This was replaced by the current church in the early-mid 15th Century. The cream-coloured stone in the interior, used for the columns, was imported from Normandy; the dark stone used for the font and windows is blue elvan quarried from Cataclews Point between Harlyn and Mother Ivy's bay.
Prideaux Place, situated at the top of Padstow, is an Elizabethan manor house which has been the home of the Prideaux family for 14 generations. It was built in 1592 by Nicholas Prideaux and survived unaltered until the 18th century when Edmund, Nicholas's great grandson, influenced by his Grand Tour through Italy in 1739, created a formal garden and updated the house by installing modern sash windows and coal burning grates.
Consequently, the house combines some traditional Elizabethan architecture with the 18th century exuberance of Strawberry Hill Gothic. Of its 81 rooms, 46 are bedrooms and only 6 of those are habitable (the rest are as the American Army left them at the end of the Second World War). The deer park is thought to be the oldest in the country and has been dated back to its enclosure by the Romans in AD 435.
The deer park is on the right-hand side of the road. The deer can often be seen there.
According to legend, St Petroc arrived from Ireland around AD 520 and settled here. After his death, a monastery called Lanwethinoc was built on the hill above the harbour in Padstow. The monks there acquired land from Portreath to Tintagel. After the Viking raid of 981 documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the monks moved inland to Bodmin taking the relics of St Petroc with them. The site of the monastery has never been identified with certainty, but it is thought to be based on the present parish church with an extension towards Prideaux Place.
To your left, across the estuary, is Daymer Bay and directly ahead are the cottages at Hawker's Cove where the Padstow Lifeboat was originally launched.
The row of six cottages at Hawker's Cove were built in 1874 for the crews of pilot gig boats allowing them quick access to reach ships entering the mouth of the estuary before they foundered on the Doom Bar. During the 19th Century, the deep river channel ran along this side of the estuary so launching at lower states of the tide would have been much easier than it is today. A pilot's lookout was situated on the edge of Iron Cove, facing out into the mouth of the estuary.
The headland ahead is Stepper Point along which the river channel used to run. Over the last century the channel has moved towards the middle of the Estuary, possibly caused by sand piling up against the many hundreds of shipwrecks in the channel. The lifeboat has therefore had to be relocated and now launches from Trevose Head.
The 40ft stone tower on Stepper Point, affectionately known as "The Pepper Pot", was built as a daymark - a navigation beacon for seafarers during daylight. At 240 feet above sea level, it is visible from 30 miles away. When it was built in 1830, the daymark cost the sum of £29. The money was raised by giving donors voting rights in the Harbour Association: one guinea would buy one vote.
Harbour Cove is the beach on the opposite side of the Camel Estuary from Daymer Bay. There is a beach at all states of the tide at Harbour Cove although at low tide, the vast beach stretches out towards Doom Bar and merges with the other beaches, making it possible to walk around Gun Point to St George's Cove across the sand.
During Victorian times and even during the early 20th Century, the main river channel ran alongside Stepper Point and so there were no sand dunes or sand bars here and the cove was surrounded by rock platforms below the edges of the field. Harbour Cove itself was a tiny beach at the mouth of the inlet in the area which is now marshland with an old double wooden walkway.
Harbour Cove is also known locally as Tregirls beach, named after Tregirls Farm. In 1600, the name was originally "grylls" but was corrupted into "girls" over the years. It's possible the name of the farm arises from the Grylls family who were part of the Cornish gentry.
The Camel Estuary is notorious for the Doom Bar - a sand bar which has caused many ship and small boat wrecks. For ships sailing into the bay on the prevailing SW wind, a great hazard was caused by the immediate loss of power due to the shelter from the cliffs. Once becalmed, they would drift helplessly and run aground on the Doom Bar. Therefore rockets were fired from the cliffs, to place a line onboard, which could then be used to pull the ship to the shore. Along the coastal path, on the cliff top, is an abandoned manual capstan which was used to winch the ships towards the harbour.
A gun battery on Gun Point is shown on maps as early as 1801 and may originally date back to defences against the Spanish Armada. It was re-fortified during the Second World War and these are the remains visible today.
The Camel Estuary is a nursery ground for bass and is a designated conservation area. Young bass spend their first 3-4 years in estuaries and then move into inshore waters. At 6-7 years the bass are sexually mature and migrate out into the Atlantic into deeper water to breed during the winter, returning each summer to coastal waters. Fishing for bass is illegal in the estuary during the summer and autumn to help protect the breeding population.
Padstow's fishing industry reached its heyday in the nineteenth century, by which time there were also six shipyards. In the 1880s, shipbuilding declined when wooden ships were replaced by iron but the town was fortunate that by the end of the nineteenth century, east-coast trawlers made Padstow the centre of their winter fishing.
When the railway opened in 1899, this quickly became important for fish export and during the 1920s, there were still well over 100 fishing boats in the harbour. When the railway closed in 1967, the fishing industry went into decline but recovered somewhat in the 1980s with Padstow being recorded as the 3rd largest fishing port in the South West in 1986.
The fishing fleet is much smaller today but is still active, and the National Lobster Hatchery is based beside the car park on the South Quay.
The National Lobster Hatchery, located on the quayside at Padstow, are aiming to create a sustainable shellfish fishery in Cornwall by providing a predator-free environment for lobsters to grow past the zooplankton stage where they normally mostly perish. The lobsters are reared in captivity until they are 2-3 months old - the age when they set up home in a burrow. They are then released at different points around the coast to replenish stocks caught by fishermen. There is a visitor centre there where you can find out more about what they do and meet the lobsters.
The first stone pier in Padstow was built during the 16th Century. Many of the buildings around the quays were originally warehouses used in marine trading during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Like many ports in North Cornwall, Padstow's economy was based on a mixture of fishing and import/export. During the middle ages, Padstow exported copper, tin and lead ores, slate, pilchards and agricultural produce. In Victorian times, coal was imported from Wales and timber from Quebec.
During the nineteenth century when emigration from Cornwall was at its height, Padstow was the centre from where many people left to start a new life in the Americas and Canada. The ships importing timber from Quebec or Prince Edward Island would offer cheap travel to passengers wishing to emigrate. Many of the ships themselves were either built in Padstow or in Canada by earlier Cornish immigrants. In 1841 (after the Cornish potato famine), Padstow was the UK's third most important departure point for Canada, surpassed only by Liverpool and London.
Abbey House is thought to be a 16th Century elaboration of an older building. It has the appearance of a guild house with chapel attached. During the 19th and early 20th Century, it was believed to be the extant remains of a chapel. However, 21st Century thinking is that it might have been constructed to look like this for Elizabethan show rather than from its original form.
Jellyfish are the oldest multi-organ animal. They have been around over 500 million years (more than twice as long ago as when the first dinosaurs appeared). They eat plankton which is most available during the late spring and summer. Consequently they are most often seen in large numbers when beaches are at their most busy.
The collective noun for jellyfish can either be a "swarm", "bloom" or "smack". When jellyfish rapidly multiply (due to plankton availability), "bloom" is typically used. When jellyfish actively swim to stay together (not all species do) then "swarm" tends to be preferred. "Smack" is a word play on being stung which is frowned-on by scientists.
Two of the most common jellyfish you're likely to see in Cornwall don't have a sting that is noticeable by humans:
Two to watch out for which are common and sting are:
Much less common, but also noteworthy for its nasty sting, is the Lion's Mane Jellyfish which is large (around 50cm across), reddish brown with thick frilled arms and a mass of hair-like tentacles. Also, if you see something that looks like a purple-and-pink inflatable pasty, it's a Portuguese Man o' War which is technically not a jellyfish but nevertheless has a very nasty sting.
If you are unlucky enough to be stung by a jellyfish, scrape off any stinging sacs stuck to the skin (e.g. with a shell or credit card) and apply ice and take some painkillers. There are old wives tales about urine, alcohol and baking soda being cures; avoid all of these as they are ineffective and likely to make the pain worse. Although vinegar does work in some situations, in others it can activate any unfired stinging cells; NHS advice is therefore to avoid it.
The Portuguese man o' war resembles a jellyfish but is actually a colony of polyps, specialised into four different roles. Some provide the float and others make up the stinging tentacles which can stretch over 160ft long and catch 100 fish in one day.
The man o' war is easily recognised by the pasty-shaped float with pink and purple colouring. They are normally found in the open ocean but big Atlantic storms with strong winds can very occasionally drive them onto the Cornish coast.
It is named after a heavily-armed 18th Century warship as a sting is extremely painful and in rare cases can be fatal.
Sandeels are small slender fish found shoaling around the beaches in Cornwall. If you put on a mask and snorkel, you're almost guaranteed to see some, often swimming around your feet.
The name is confusing as sandeels are not eels, just long, thin fish (like barracuda, but a lot smaller!). The sand part is because they burrow into the sand if alarmed. There are two main types present in Cornwall: Lesser Sandeels are the small ones you're likely to see by the shore, Greater Sandeels are chunkier and about the length of your foot; they can sometimes be seen shoaling in deeper water, occasionally joining in with a shoal of Lesser Sandeels.
Sandeels are a vital part of the food chain, supporting many sea birds including puffins and larger fish such as sea bass. Consequently they are a favourite bait for anglers, and in Cornwall a curved iron bar known as a vingler was traditionally used to snag buried sandeels.
Sandeels eat zooplankton and are therefore snookered by Global Warming causing phytoplankton to bloom early resulting in the zooplankton being undernourished. Industrial fishing for sandeels for use in fertilisers (e.g. "fish, blood and bone") has also damaged the population.
Spurges are small plants with bright green, fleshy leaves with pointed tips that can be found on sand dunes in Cornwall. They do well in areas of fairly bare sand without much other vegetation so can be found along the edge of paths where other vegetation has been worn down.
Sea spurge has quite spiky leaves and grows up to a foot tall. It's particularly noticeable in December and January when other vegetation has died down. The stems are red at the base and green at the top and have leaves all along their length.
Portland spurge is less of an upright plant. Its stems are red and bald for most of their length which is the easiest way to tell it from sea spurge. It was named after first being identified on Portland where it turns out to be not that common. However it does seem to be pretty common at Perranporth if a more appropriate name is desired. It flowers from April to September. The leaves at the end of the stems form little cups with a tiny yellow flower in the middle.
The plants are related to petty spurge (milkweed) found in gardens. Milkweed is also known as radium weed as the sap is said to kill rapidly-replicating cells and so it has been used as a traditional medicine for skin cancers.
Turnstones are small wading birds which can often be seen scavenging for small crumbs of pasty along harbour fronts in Cornwall. Their name arises from one of their ways of finding food on the seashore: they are able to lift stones as large as themselves using their strong neck. As their pasty foraging skills suggest, they are very versatile feeders and will eat almost anything including dead animals.
Rooks can be distinguished from other members of the crow family by their pale, hairless, pointy beak (other members of the crow family have black beaks and also a moustache on the top of their beak).
Rooks nest in colonies and are one of the most social members of the crow family. Scientists have found that rooks are happy to work cooperatively to solve problems (e.g. each pulling on a separate string to release food).
Experiments have shown that rooks are able to use tools to solve problems, choosing tools with optimal sizes and shapes to solve a problem. They are also able to adapt tools e.g. bending a wire to make a hook to retrieve food.
Rooks eat pretty much anything but their primary food source is earthworms and insect larvae which their beak is evolved to probe for.
Red and Roe deer are the two truly native species of the six found in the UK and both have pointy, branching (rugose) antlers. The Red deer is the largest of the species and has a characteristic large white V on its backside whereas the Roe deer just has a small white patch.
The fallow deer was introduced by the Normans and has flat, elk-like (palmate) antlers and an inverted black horseshoe surrounding a white patch on its rear end.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, three "exotic" Asian species (munjac, sika and Chinese water deer) were introduced. These all have quite rounded ears whereas the European species all have pointy "elf-like" ears.
Roe deer, Fallow deer and Red deer are all present in Cornwall and the populations of all three species has increased substantially over the past decade, possibly by as much as a factor of ten. There are also a small number of munjac deer, but far fewer than in the rest of England.
There are several reasons why seagulls should not be fed.
One is that human foods are not nutritionally suitable for seagulls but seagulls are not smart enough to know these can damage their health.
Another is that seagulls become dependent on humans and lose the skills to obtain food from natural sources.
The reason most affecting us is that feeding seagulls makes them less scared of humans. Since seagulls do not have have the emotional wiring to empathise with humans, fear is the only thing preventing that interaction being aggressive. Seagulls are innately aggressive when it comes to food as their behaviour with other seagulls demonstrates. There are many examples of children being attacked (who then drop food, reinforcing the behaviour).
Many guides to crabbing mention changing water in a bucket containing crabs. There are two reasons why changing water frequently (every 10 minutes) is vital to keep crabs alive:
Crabs have gills and get their oxygen from the water. There is not much water in a bucket and the oxygen quite quickly gets depleted. Too many crabs in one bucket also depletes the oxygen too quickly.
The temperature of the sea in Britain rarely exceeds 19°C and most marine animals can only survive short periods at higher temperatures where their metabolic processes don't work efficiently. Crabs will avoid water warmer than 25°C (room temperature) as long periods in warm water will kill them. The small amount of water in a bucket has a small heat capacity (like in a nearly-empty kettle) and so will warm up quite quickly. Keeping the bucket out of the sun will also help to stop the water getting too warm before it is changed.
Increasing the amount of water will also help by holding more oxygen and staying cool longer.
Red valerian is also known as kiss-me-quick, fox's brush and Devil's or Jupiter's beard and can be seen flowering in early summer in hedgerows near the coast. The plant is originally from the Mediterranean and is thought to have been introduced as a garden plant roughly around the Tudor period. It has since become naturalised and the brightly-coloured flowers provide nectar for bees, butterflies and moths. Over time the base of the stems can get as thick as a small tree trunk which can lever apart the walls in which it can often be seen growing.
Red valerian occurs with three main flower colours: about 50% of plants are deep pink, 40% are red and around 10% have white flowers. Very pale pink also occurs but is much rarer. These distinct forms are an example of flower colour polymorphism. The red pigment within the flowers is an anthrocyanin compound and the different colours are due to different amounts of the pigment.
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