Poundstock

Poundstock is a scattered rural parish about 4 miles south of Bude on the north Cornwall coast. The parish is notable for its medieval church and the adjacent Gildhouse, a Grade I listed church house of the 15th or 16th century (a dendrochronology report points to around 1550) and the only one in Cornwall still used for its original purpose. The church is dedicated to St Winwaloe and has a battlemented tower.

According to the parish council’s history, in 1537 the assistant curate William Penfound was hacked to death in front of the altar by pirates and robbers, at a time of bitter conflict along this stretch of coast. Local tradition holds that Penfound’s ghost still kneels near the spot where he died, inside the church he never left.

The coastline in the parish includes Widemouth Bay, a broad sandy beach about 2 miles west that is popular for surfing. The South West Coast Path runs along the cliff tops. Bude is about 4 miles north, with its shops, restaurants, and a canal built between 1818 and 1825 to carry mineral-rich sea sand inland for farmland. The landscape here is rolling farmland dropping to dramatic cliffs, typical of the north Cornwall coast.