Saint Petroc of Padstow

Ecclesiastical Patron of Cornwall

Saint Petroc was the son of a Welsh king who did not want to be king on his father’s death. The young Petroc wanted to become a monk instead, and went to study in Ireland for twenty years with sixty fellow noblemen.

Petroc returned home to Wales, and later sailed for Cornwall. Landing at Padstow, he met a Christian hermit. He asked the hermit for a drink of water and, being rudely told to go and find it himself, Petroc struck the ground three times with his staff and a spring of water appeared. A bishop nearby called Wethenoc was more friendly and gave his monk’s cell to Petroc. Petroc and his followers lived there for thirty years before going on pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land. Some say he even went to India!

Petroc was then warned by an angel to return to Cornwall, where he drove away a huge serpent terrorising the local people. One day a huge and fierce dragon came and stood outside Petroc’s cell. Petroc was not afraid, and carried on praying and copying the Gospels out for three days, until he came out to find the dragon still there. He noticed it seemed to be in pain and that it had a splinter in its eye. No wonder it was so fierce! Petroc pulled the splinter out of the dragon’s eye, and healed it. It was grateful for such kindness, but Petroc told the dragon it had to leave the area as the people were very scared of it. It left that region, and they never saw it again.

On another occasion, evil King Teudar had ordered that lots of serpents and poisonous worms be put into a marshy lake into which he intended criminals would be thrown. However, the serpents and worms ate each other until there was just one huge, fat serpent left, which then terrorised the local people. St Petroc ordered the serpent to leave that place, and it was never seen again.

Then Petroc, wanting to live alone and draw closer to God in greater silence, went off to live at Little Petherick a few miles from Padstow. One day a terrified deer ran down the road as it was being hunted by a king called Constantine and his men. It ran up to Petroc and he opened up his cloak so the deer could hide inside it. Constantine saw this happen, however, and angrily went to strike Petroc, but his arm suddenly went lifeless and numb. The astonished king and his men immediately became Christians, asked Petroc’s forgiveness, and the king’s arm was miraculously healed.

Near the end of his life Petroc moved further inland to an even more solitary place, where the busy market town of Bodmin is now to be found. There he met a hermit called Guron who let Petroc have his cell. Guron then moved a day’s journey to the south to where the village of Gorran now stands. Petroc’s monasteries at Padstow and Bodmin became very important places for the Church in Cornwall. It was at Bodmin that the Bodmin Gospels were copied, now kept in the British Library in London. This is the oldest Cornish book in existence.
Petroc died at Treravel a few miles from Padstow, and he was buried afterwards in Padstow. In 981 Padstow was raided by Vikings, and it was probably around this time that Petroc’s bones were moved to greater safety to Bodmin and kept in a special shrine. The shrine was later destroyed in the Reformation, but the ornate box in which Petroc’s bones were kept was later found hidden in a room above the church porch. Petroc’s bones were sadly missing. This beautiful box and Guron’s holy well can now be seen at Saint Petroc’s Church in Bodmin.