Skip to Content

Things to do in Padstow and St Enodoc – in Cornwall

Enjoy a weekend in Cornwall at Padstow, once a traditional Cornish fishing village. These days it’s full of smart restaurants, art galleries, gift shops and locals complaining about being priced out of the housing market! If you’re visiting, here’s our overview of all the things to do in Padstow and a walk through the sand dunes to St Enodoc.

Boats in Padstow harbour
Boats in Padstow harbour

Rick Stein in Padstow

Much of Padstow’s popularity is down to the impact of Rick Stein, celebrity Cornish chef with a string of TV series under his belt and a number of culinary enterprises that dominate the foodie scene in Padstow. A few years ago I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner at his flagship Seafood restaurant, admiring his art collection on the walls. This time we had teenagers in tow, so it was fish and chips for us.

Stein's fish restaurant in Padstow
Stein’s fish restaurant in Padstow
Stein's patisserie in Padstow
Stein’s patisserie in Padstow
Stein's cafe in Padstow
Stein’s cafe in Padstow

In August Padstow is packed, and even on a February weekend it was buzzing. There were fudge and ice cream shops for the children, some arty gift shops and boutiques to keep me happy and enough sunny benches for the menfolk to enjoy a pastie and a pint.

Things to do in Padstow

There’s a haunted Elizabethan manor house set above the town. Or you can hire a bike from the car park and follow the Camel Trail along a disused railway line beside the beautiful Camel Estuary, as far as Wadebridge and beyond.

On our visit however, we decided to take the ferry from the harbour that plies back and forth across the estuary to the holiday village of Rock.

Padstow Ferry on Rock beach
Padstow Ferry on Rock beach
Beach at Rock
Beach at Rock
Camel estuary from Rock beach
Camel estuary from Rock beach

Landing on the beach, we turned our back on Rock, so favoured by the smart, London crowd, setting our faces instead towards the estuary mouth. The broad beach would have been perfect for kite-flying but there was not enough wind. Instead we clambered through the sand dunes towards the St Enodoc golf course in search of the tiny church of St Enodoc that serves the parish of St Minver.

St Enodoc church
St Enodoc church

The chapel at St Enodoc

The chapel dates back to the 12th century but until 1864 it was virtually buried by the dunes that surrounded it. To hold a service the vicar and parishioners had to descend into the sanctuary through a hole in the roof. In the 19th century it was finally unearthed and the church restored.

St Enodoc church
St Enodoc church
St Enodoc church
St Enodoc church

Today you can find everything you might hope for in an old Cornish church but in miniature; the cut-down medieval rood screen, the mellow wooden pews and the memorials to those who died at sea.

John Betjemans headstone at St Enodoc church
John Betjeman’s headstone at St Enodoc church

John Betjeman at St Enedoc

The former poet Laureate John Betjeman had a holiday home at nearby Daymer and is buried here – he wrote this poem about the church.

If you’re looking for the Cornwall that time forgot, this is surely the place to find it – and not a bad place to be buried either.

Sunday Afternoon Service in St. Enodoc Church

Come on! Come on! This hillock hides the spire,
Now that one and now none. As winds about
The burnished path through lady’s-finger, thyme,
And bright varieties of saxifrage,
So grows the tinny tenor faint or loud
All all things draw toward St. Enodoc.
Come on! Come on! and it is five to three.

Still, Come on! come on!
The tinny tenor. Hover-flies remain
More than a moment on a ragwort bunch,
And people’s passing shadows don’t disturb
Red Admirals basking with their wings apart.
A mile of sunny, empty sand away,
A mile of shallow pools and lugworm casts.
Safe, faint and surfy, laps the lowest tide.

Graveyard at St Enodoc church
Graveyard at St Enodoc church

Read more articles from Devon

Dinner at the Stag Inn at Rackenford in Devon

Castles and Cream Teas at Dunster

Hunting the Ash Black Slug on Dartmoor in Devon

Click to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, news and reader offers

Subscribe to Heather on her travels newsletter

Cliff walks and country houses - in Cornwall (and a bit of Devon) | Heather on her travels

Sunday 20th of November 2011

[...] the Ash-black slug on Dartmoor – in Devon A visit to Padstow and a walk through the dunes to St Enodoc Walking on Exmoor and staying at Catsheys luxury B&B – in [...]

The story of Sir Alexander Carew's leather jerkin - at Antony in Cornwall | Heather on her travels

Monday 31st of October 2011

[...] the Ash-black slug on Dartmoor – in Devon A visit to Padstow and a walk through the dunes to St Enodoc Walking on Exmoor and staying at Catsheys luxury B&B – in [...]

Free and family friendly holiday activities in Devon | Heather on her travels

Monday 20th of June 2011

[...] A visit to Padstow and a walk through the dunes to St Enodoc Hunting the ash-black slug on Dartmoor in Devon Castles and cream teas at Dunster [...]

A trio of tiny campsites in Southern England

Thursday 26th of August 2010

[...] Farm campsite is on the outskirts of the popular holiday and fishing village of Padstow where you’ll find plenty of upscale shops, pubs and restaurants, not to mention a couple of fish [...]

Clifftop walks and surfing at Treyarnon Bay Hostel in Cornwall, England

Wednesday 12th of May 2010

[...] holiday village of Rock and walk along the sand beach and through the dunes to the pretty little chapel at St Enodoc where the famous poet, John Betjeman is buried. At Padstow, you can also join the Camel trail which [...]