A very considerable trade is carried on here in iron, coals, timber, groceries, and merchandize in general. Padstow has a market weekly, and two fairs annually. These are now little more than mere holiday fairs; though within these 60 years they were well supplied with cattle, cloth, hats, &c. Leland, speaking of this town, says—“There use many Britons with smaul shippes to resorte to Padestowe, with commodities of their countrey, and to by fische: the town of Padestowe is ful of Irisch men: there is a large exporte of corne.” Carew again says—“It hath lately purchased a corporation, and reapeth greatest thrift by traffiking with Ireland, for which it commodiously lieth.” We have not been able to learn any thing about the charter of corporation alluded to by Carew, and are assured that the town has no such charter. The principal import-trade, for iron, is from Cardiff; coals, from Wales; timber, from Norway; and groceries, and bale goods, from Bristol: and considerable quantities of corn are still exported; the other principal exports are malt and block-tin.
In the _Church_, an antique building, situated at the head of the town, are several handsome memorials: that of Sir Nicholas Prideaux, Knt., who was Carew’s contemporary, and died in 1627, commemorates also Sir William Morice, who married a daughter of Humphrey Prideaux: “he was knighted,” says his epitaph, “by King Charles II., on his landing at Dover, and afterwards made Secretary of State and a Privy Counsellor, in consequence of his great services in bringing about the Restoration, by his influence with General Monk. He died at Werrington, in 1676, aged 75.” The learned Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, was a grandson of Sir Nicholas above-mentioned, and was born at Padstow, in 1648. Dr. Prideaux, who was educated at Liskeard school, besides his well-known work on the connexion between the Old and New Testaments, published “The True Nature of Imposture fully displayed in the Life of Mahomet.”—The _Font_, in this antient building, is in itself a curious relic of antiquity, decorated with effigies of the twelve Apostles.
There are several antient _Chapels_ in this parish. That of St. Saviour, of which the east wall remains, stood on the brink of the precipice which overlooks the town: near Place-house, at the top of the town, was St. Sampson’s chapel: at Trethyllic, near Place grounds, was a chapel with a cemetery: between St. Saviour’s, and Stepper-point, was another chapel, the name of which is not known: and about a mile and a half from the town, that of St. Cadock, which had a tower, the pinnacles of which were used in rebuilding that of Little Petherick church.