Qualla: Padstow

Padstow: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Around the year 500 AD a Welsh missionary named Petroc landed at Trebetherick, on the eastern side of the Camel estuary, and crossed the river to settle on the west bank. He founded a monastery on the site now called Padstow - originally Lanwethinoc, the church of an earlier holy man named Wethinoc. The place that grew up around the monastery was named for the saint: Petroc-stow, Petroc's place, eventually contracted to Padstow. It has been a port, a religious centre, a market for traders to Ireland and Bristol, a wartime target and a celebrity-chef sensation. Five hundred years of names accumulated on a single town site is a deeply Cornish thing.

Read more: Padstow on Qualla

Padstow: The Saint and the Vikings

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Saint Petroc's monastery was important enough to attract attention. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Petroces stow - almost certainly Padstow - was raided by the Vikings in 981. Whether as a direct response or some time afterward, the monks moved inland to Bodmin, carrying...

Read more: Padstow on Qualla

Padstow: Doom Bar, Doom Trade

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Padstow grew rich on the awkwardness of its geography. The north coast of Cornwall has very few safe harbours, and ships coming in off the Atlantic needed somewhere to land. Padstow was one of the few options. Trade ran heavily with Ireland and with the English and Welsh ports of...

Read more: Padstow on Qualla

Padstow: May Day

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Each May Day, Padstow holds one of the oldest continuously celebrated folk customs in England. A 'hobby horse' - the 'Obby 'Oss - and its costumed teaser dance through the streets to drum and accordion, accompanied by the day's song. There are in fact two horses, the Old 'Oss and...

Read more: Padstow on Qualla

Padstow: Padstein

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1975 a young chef named Rick Stein opened a seafood restaurant in Padstow. Five decades later he has so reshaped the town's economy that British food writers have dubbed it Padstein. Stein owns several restaurants and businesses along the harbour, and tourists travel from acro...

Read more: Padstow on Qualla

Padstow: A Town of Names

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Padstow has more famous sons than a town of 2,669 has any right to. Matthew Quintal (1766-1799), an able seaman from Padstow, was among the mutineers of HMS Bounty and the last of them to be murdered on Pitcairn Island. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney (1793-1875) was a surgeon, chemist, a...

Read more: Padstow on Qualla