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 black-and-white L-shaped building arranged around a courtyard, that you pass on your left, was the Padstow Courthouse.
Padstow Court House, situated on Riverside, was originally built in the 16th Century and extended in the late 17th and 19th centuries. Sir Walter Raleigh lived in Padstow at the end of the 16th Century when he was Warden of Cornwall and his Court House was the administrative centre for the collection of taxes and dues. Before the 19th century remodelling of the harbour, the water's edge would have been directly in front of the house.
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.
The top of the High Streetin Padstow is the head of what once was a tidal creek, overlooked by the church until the tidal seashore was reclaimed over the past three centuries. Whilst Tokyo is perhaps more famous for its reclaimed land, Padstow got there first!
The path with the blue sign to the right leads to the beach where the passenger ferry to Rock docks at low tide because Padstow Harbour is only navigable when the tide is in. Gates trap water in the harbour at low tide so the boats remain afloat. At high tide, the ferry docks on the outside of the quay.
There is a good view across the estuary if you climb to the top of the stile just past the memorial. The beach on the opposite side is Daymer Bay.
The hill behind Daymer Bay is known as "Brea Hill". Since brea already means "hill" in Cornish, "hill hill" is a bit redundant.
The large house on the left at the far end of the lane is known as the Dower House.
The Dower House is situated by Prideaux Place in Padstow. The house was formerly known as The Nook and home of the town doctor. Dr Henry Frederick Marley, born 1831, practised there for about 50 years. His father - Dr Miles Marley - was a surgeon from London who eventually retired to Port Isaac to be nearer his son.
In 1843, Charles Dickens dined with his friend Miles Marley. They agreed that Marley was an unusual name and Dickens exclaimed (somewhat confidently), "Before the New Year, your name will be a household word!" He then used the name "Jacob Marley" for Scrooge's partner in "A Christmas Carol", which was finished at the beginning of December 1843. The book sold 6,000 copies by Christmas Eve, which at the time was a record, and Dickens' confident claim was realised.
Some of the places that the ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge are also thought to be based on Dickens' visit to Cornwall in 1842 with elements including the "bleak and desert moor where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about" and the Longships Lighthouse at Land's End (described as "upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed"). One of the main objectives of Dickens' visit was to witness the working conditions at Botallack Mine, particularly for women and children, and this also features in the story.
The manor house to your right is Prideaux Place and its herd of deer can usually be seen over the railings opposite this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you can see fish swimming around in the harbour, they are likely to be grey mullet.
Grey mullet are related to the perch family (which includes bass) and are surprisingly unrelated to the "red mullet" (which is in fact a type of goatfish). Mullet caught in the open sea are excellent eating fish and can be used in similar dishes to bass. However, those living in muddy water (such as the harbour) generally taste of mud. This can apparently be diminished by soaking them in acidic, salty water but the flavour is still described as "earthy".
The concept of fish and chips is thought to be a fusion of Jewish and northern English cultures. Fried fish was originally introduced by Jewish settlers, while chips became popular in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The combination as a dish is thought to have originated in the mid 1800s. During World War II, it was one of the few foods that were not rationed. The practice of wrapping in newspaper was stopped in the late 1980s due to the toxic chemicals used in ink.
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.
Many place names in Cornwall containing "Dennis" are corruptions of Dinas which is the Celtic (Cornish and Old Welsh) word for a fort or citadel. The boy's name Dennis has an altogether different origin, from Dionysus - the god of wine. St Dennis (in Cornwall) and the shortened version of it in Australia - Sydney - are both of the latter origin.
The Saints' Way runs for 30 miles from Padstow to Fowey, and follows one of the likely routes of early Christian travellers making their way from Wales and Ireland to the Continent during the Dark Ages. Rather than risk a premature martyring on the rocks around Land's End, they would disembark their ships on the North Devon and Cornish coast and cross the peninsula, on foot, to ports on the south coast such as Fowey. The Bush Inn at Morwenstow is thought to be one of the stopovers from the North Devon ports. The route from Padstow to Fowey was in use before the Dark Ages which is evident from Roman coins found along the route. However it is thought that it was likely to have been in use even earlier still, in the Iron Age.
The settlement of Dinas, to the south of Padstow, was first recorded in 1327 when it was spelt Dynays. The name Dinas (the Cornish word for fort) is thought to have arisen because the neighbouring Dennis Hill (which is likely to have once been called Dinas Hill) has a natural geological formation which resembles an Iron Age hillfort.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
The obelisk was erected to commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887.
Royal Jubilees began with George III celebrating 50 years on the throne in 1809 with a Golden Jubilee, followed by Queen Victoria in 1887. Victoria was the first monarch to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Elizabeth II celebrated a 25 year Silver Jubilee in 1977, a Golden Jubilee in 2002 and Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
During the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, regattas were popular in Cornwall. Skiffs were built in Padstow for races on estuaries of the Camel and Gannel that more resemble the boats used in the Oxford-Cambridge boat race than the seaworthy gigs normally found in Cornwall. As with the racing in Oxford and Cambridge, a small, light person was found to cox the boat, typically a child in Cornwall. One such skiff named "Swift" was found in the rafters of a Padstow boat yard in the 1950s and is now in the National Maritime Centre in Falmouth.
Ducks can change gender. This happens for about 1 duck in 10,000 and more commonly from female to male than the other way around. It seems to occur in a flock of ducks where there is a significant gender imbalance where it gives the duck that changes a competitive advantage. It's likely that the female to male direction is a bigger evolutionary win because one male can fertilise multiple females.
The Camel Trail is a recreational walking and cycling track along the track bed of an old railway running from Wenfordbridge to Padstow. The railway, where the Camel Trail now runs, was originally built in 1831 by local landowner, Sir William Molesworth of Pencarrow. The line from Wadebridge to Wenfordbridge, with a branch to Bodmin, was intended to carry sand from the Camel estuary to inland farms for use as fertiliser. Later, the railway was used to ship slate and china clay from inland quarries to ships in Padstow and also transport fish, landed in Padstow, to London and other cities. The last passenger train was in 1967 and freight finally ceased in 1983, when a need to invest in new track forced closure of the line.
The River Camel runs for 30 miles from Bodmin Moor to Padstow Bay, making it the longest river in Cornwall after the Tamar.
The Camel Estuary is a geological ria - a deep valley flooded by rising sea levels after the last ice age, stretching from the headlands of Pentire Point and Stepper Point all the way to Wadebridge. The estuary is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Marine Conservation Zone.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Clotted-cream fudge is traditional in Devon and Cornwall but this is a relatively recent tradition. Fudge is thought to have first been made in the USA during Victorian times when a recipe for caramel went wrong hence "fudge" is also used to mean "to not do correctly". The basis of fudge is sugar, butter and milk but in the Westcountry, clotted cream is used in place of butter and milk, resulting in a basic recipe of just 2 ingredients.
The traditional flavouring is vanilla, which itself is also clue to the period from which the recipes originate. It wasn't until Victorian times that a hand pollination technique was discovered for the vanilla orchid by a 12-year-old slave in the French colonies. This allowed commercial vanilla production to take place outside of Mexico and this made vanilla much more affordable. The pollination technique discovered by the young boy is still the basis of commercial production today.
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.
Lobsters are among the planet's oldest inhabitants with fossil remains dating back more than 100 million years. They are also extremely long-lived with some individuals reaching ages in excess of 80 years. A specimen of over 50 years old was caught in Cornwall in 2012 and was given to the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay - it was a metre long and weighed 4kg. The heaviest lobster recorded was caught in 1934 and weighed an immense 19kg!
The name lobster is originally from the Latin word locusta which means either locust or lobster. In mediaeval English, a word specifically for lobster (loppestre) was created, it is thought, by merging the Latin word for "locust" with the Old English word for "spider" (loppe - from which we get "lobe" for "dangly thing"). Perhaps the mediaeval rationale was that lobsters' legs are somewhat spider-like.
Britain lost most of its wild yew trees due to longbow production in the Middle Ages. Once the national supplies had been exhausted, Britain began importing yew wood from just about any European country that had any, rendering yew trees extinct or rare in many parts of Europe. Ironically, Britain now has possibly the world's greatest collection of yews and the majority of these are in churchyards where it was deemed inappropriate to fell them for longbows.
The yew trees in British churchyards are some of the oldest yew trees found anywhere in the world and yews can live for thousands of years: the Forestry Commission described them as "the toughest, most indestructible and longest lived tree we have". It is therefore possible that some of the ancient yews are older than the adjacent church buildings as Christianity took over many sacred places from the previous religious traditions: in AD 601, Pope Gregory advised his followers not to destroy places of Pagan worship but to convert them into Christian Churches.
Rabbits were originally from the Iberian peninsula and were brought to Britain by the Normans and kept in captivity as a source of meat and fur. Although grass is their principal natural food, rabbits are able to survive on virtually any vegetable matter and with relatively few predators, those that escaped multiplied into a sizeable wild population.
During mediaeval times, rabbit was decreed by Pope Gregory I as "not meat" so it could be eaten during Lent. This accelerated the spread of rabbits through European monasteries in the middle ages. In fact, there are no barriers in the world's major religions to eating rabbit which is also considered both halal and kosher. From Elizabethan times, rabbit farming became common practice in Britain and it was not until the 1950s (when rabbits were associated with myxomatosis) that its popularity as a food declined sharply.
Rabbits have a number of wild predators including foxes, polecats and stoats. Buzzards and weasels will also take young ones. Domestic cats are also capable of tackling a full-grown rabbit. Rabbits have evolved to be able to detect predators early and then run very fast. The location of their eyes on the sides of the their head gives them almost 360 degree vision and they can also can turn their ears 180 degrees to pinpoint the location of a sound.
If a rabbit is placed on its back and its legs are stroked, it appears to go into a relaxed trance and many owners of pet rabbits thought this was a cute thing to do that was enjoyable for the rabbit. It's now understood that this reaction, known as "tonic immobility", occurs when the rabbit is extremely stressed because it thinks it is about to be eaten by a predator! It is effectively a "playing dead" reaction to lull a predator into a false sense of security so the rabbit can make a sudden escape when the predator isn't paying attention.
Due to their warm fur, rabbits are able to feed all year round, switching to woody foods such as bark and twigs when green vegetation isn't available. They don't hibernate and the reason they aren't seen as often in the winter is just that they are most active at dawn and dusk when people tend not to be out walking.
Rabbit teeth continue to grow throughout their lives as an evolutionary adaptation to eating grass which contains abrasive silica. Consequently pet rabbits fed a diet with insufficient hay often get problems with overgrown teeth. However, cut grass from a mower should not be fed to rabbits as it ferments more quickly than fresh grass (impact and heat from the blades causes bruising and wilting which releases the carbohydrates) which results in bloated bunnies.
The first record of slang word "bunny" being applied to rabbits is from the late 17th Century. Prior to this it was in use as a term of endearment, recorded in a 1606 love letter as "my honey, my bunny...". The origin of this pet name is thought to be a dialect word "bun" which was a general term for small furry creatures which did include rabbits but also applied to squirrels. The use of the word "rabbit" for chattering is from the Cockney rhyming slang for "talk" (rabbit and pork).
Since rabbits' unfussy diet includes pretty much anything grown by farmers, in the 1950s, the disease myxomatosis was deliberately spread in the UK to curb rabbit numbers. Over 99% were wiped-out and they almost became extinct. The few survivors that were genetically more resistant to the disease multiplied and so the survival rate has now increased to around 35%. Escaped pet rabbits inoculated with a live virus have the potential to transfer the vaccine into the wild population which may further increase resistance. Consequently the peak rabbit population gradually recovered to around half the size of the UK human population.
By 2013, rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus type 2 (RHDV2) had crossed to the UK from continental Europe and began spreading through the wild population. By 2018, nearly half the UK rabbit population had disappeared. In their native region on the Iberian peninsula, rabbits are now an endangered species and there is concern that the UK population decline will continue. Whilst a high density of rabbits can be a pest to farmers, in many areas the rabbit population has already fallen well below the level where this is significant.
The close grazing from rabbits in wilderness environments is valuable for biodiversity, allowing rare wildflowers to compete with grass and insect species to thrive. The crash in the rabbit population due to myxomatosis is thought to have been a contributing factor to the large blue butterfly going extinct in Britain in the 1970s. The recent decline from RHDV2 is therefore worrying conservationists. Consequently, some landowners are now giving rabbits a helping hand by creating "rabbit hotels" - areas of brushwood above warrens that provide extra cover and safety for rabbits.
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.
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