Padstow History

Visit historic Padstow

Padstow is a small town in the Cornwall area of the UK, and there is evidence to suggest that people settled and travelled through the area a long as four thousand years ago. The town used to be called Petroc-stow after Saint Petroc a Welsh missionary who studied theology in Ireland, landed on the shores of Trebetherick close to what was then Lanwethinoc, around AD 500. A monastery was established by Petroc and that was an important part of the town until the Viking invasion. The monastery was eventually destroyed by the Vikings in the tenth century and the monks moved on and came under the control of the priory of Bodmin. Petroc also founded a number of other hermitages and monasteries and died in Wales around 594 and was then buried in Padstow. Padstow’s present church was built between 1420 and 1450.

After their successful invasion, the Vikings had a huge influence on the town of Padstow and around 722AD all of the inhabitants of Cornwall united with the Vikings against the Saxon invaders led by Ine of Wessex at ‘Helhil.’ The Saxons were slaughtered and for the next hundred years Cornwall was free of invasions from Wessex. In medieval times King Atheistan granted the town right of sanctuary, which allowed criminals to remain safe from arrest. Padstow’s right of sanctuary continued right up until the Reformation period. When the ownership of the land was transferred from the church to the Prideaux family in the sixteenth century, it ceased to be under the church’s control. The house is still inhabited by the descendants of the Prideauxs.

By the sixteenth century Padstow has developed as a ship building centre and a busy fishing and trading port. The town gave shelter to Martin Frobisher on his way back from his search for the North Western Passage to China in 1577. The town was also home to Sir Walter Raleigh for a time when he was warden of Cornwall and his court on the riverside was the administration centre for the area. Although his house and court are still standing they are not open to the public.

The slate and copper mining industry in Cornwall was growing in the seventeenth century and much of it was exported. The high point for the ports was in the nineteenth century and fish, grains, cheese and minerals were also being exported. The importance of the ports was helped by the coming of the railway in 1899 and it also saw the beginnings of the tourist industry. There used to be a direct rail link to Padstow from London Waterloo but that was closed under the Beaching cuts of the nineteen sixties and the importance of Padstow declined. In the last fifteen years ago, like some other British seaside towns, Padstow has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance. The town has also been put back on the map by television chef Rick Stein. Stein opened a fish restaurant thirty or so years ago that has since become an award winning and internationally recognised star restaurant.