and
were it not for the sands that block its entrance, this would be truly
a fine harbour; even so, it is the best that North Cornwall possesses.
Two vessels sailed from here for the siege of Calais; and in the
sixteenth century some sort of corporation was granted, but this seems
to have been lost. At the present day it is a picturesque, quaint old
town, in a beautiful and most interesting site, dominated by a
weather-beaten old church. But Mr. Hind, though he finds much to
admire, does not regard Padstow as in any sense typically Cornish. He
says: "An air-voyager dropped from a flying-machine upon the roof of a
Padstow house would never think that he was in Cornwall. If he walked
out to Stepper Point, or strode some miles westward to Trevose Head,
the first land sighted in old days by Canadian timber vessels trading
to Padstow, the majestic sweep of coast, the jagged headlands and
scattered rocks would certainly suggest Cornwall; but the estuary of
the Camel from Wadebridge to Padstow, although beautiful, has no claim
to the epithet wild. The panorama induces reflection, moves one to a
mood of gentle melancholy; but it does not stimulate. Nowhere in
Cornwall have I seen such sand--gold, grey and yellow, equally lovely
at all tides. Looking across the river, the eye is soothed by these
wastes of blown sand stretching inland from the sea to where the
little hamlet called Rock rises from the shore." Sundries are imported
at the docks, and there is some shipment of corn; but the
ship-building, once notable, has greatly declined, and the town now
does little but repairing. It is satisfactory to find that the sands
of the Doom Bar have a certain value, as they contain much carbonate
of lime, and they are carried inland for agricultural purposes. The
church, which stands well above the town, has a good Early English
tower, and a beautiful, finely carved catacleuse font; in the south
porch the parish stocks are preserved. In the chancel, over the
piscina, is an effigy sometimes mistaken for that of St. Anthony, but
almost certainly the figure is St. Petrock himself, with his usual
symbols, the staff and wolf, at his feet. There are modern monochrome
pictures from drawings by Hofmann in front of the organ. It is natural
to find monuments of the Prideaux family both within the church and
without; in the churchyard also are two granite crosses, one much
mutilated.

Prideaux Place, generally named Place, stands a little higher t