Padstow
Padstow is the most celebrated fishing port on the north Cornish coast, a small estuary town on the Camel Estuary whose combination of a working fishing harbour, excellent seafood restaurants, attractive medieval and later architecture and the association with the celebrity chef Rick Stein have made it one of the most visited and most gastronomically distinguished small towns in Cornwall. The town retains its identity as a working fishing community while accommodating visitor numbers that substantially exceed its permanent population in summer. The harbour is the heart of Padstow, the quayside buildings climbing above it and the fishing vessels, ferries and pleasure craft filling the inner harbour with colour and activity throughout the season. The fish landed at Padstow, including bass, sole, crab, lobster and the famous Padstow lobsters that feed on the clean waters of the Camel Estuary, provide the raw material for the restaurants that have made the town one of the finest destinations in England for seafood. Rick Stein's various establishments, opened in the town from 1975 onward, have been credited with substantially raising the quality and profile of British seafood cookery. The town's historic buildings include Prideaux Place, an Elizabethan country house immediately behind the town that has been home to the Prideaux-Brune family since 1592 and is open to visitors in summer. The Church of St Petroc, the largest in Cornwall, was dedicated to the sixth-century Celtic saint who is said to have founded a monastery in Padstow and gives the town its Cornish name of Petroc-stow, the holy place of Petroc. The Camel Trail, a cycling and walking route following the disused railway line along the Camel Estuary to Bodmin, provides excellent family cycling from the town.