In early 2025 it was announced that the renowned chef, Paul Ainsworth and his wife, Emma, would be taking over the St Enodoc Hotel in the beautiful seaside village of Rock, ushering in a new era for this historic establishment. The chef already runs ‘No6’ in Padstow, which secured Michelin star status there in 2013, as well as the Mariners Pub, also in Rock, but the hotel is a new and exciting challenge for the couple. (image credit: https://enodoc-hotel.co.uk/)
And as for the St Enodoc Hotel – well, this is another interesting chapter in this landmark hotel’s nearly 100 year long history.
The St Enodoc Hotel was built in 1920s at a cost of £8,000, around £300,000 in today’s money, but what makes its story all the more interesting, and unusual for its time, is that the owners of this brand new hotel were two unmarried women.
In 1920 St Enodoc was owned by two unmarried women
Ethel Webb had moved to Cornwall in around 1918 when she was 42 years old and in July that year the local papers announced that she had taken over as the licensee for the Rock Hotel. In 1923 the ‘Kelly’s Directory’, an early version of the Yellow Pages, lists Miss Ethel Webb as the manageress of the Rock Hotel, at that time the only hotel in the village and just a short walk from the nearby golf course that had been founded in 1891.
It was at the Rock Hotel that Ethel Webb met Miss Skinner (her first name is unknown sadly) and it seems that the pair hit it off and shared a mutual desire to go into business for themselves. They had ambitions of running their own hotel and decided to go into partnership together.
What they created was a classic seaside escape in a stunning location, just above the Camel Estuary. By 1930 the newest edition of ‘Kelly’s’ noted the new hotel in its listings and recorded its “proprietresses – Miss Webb and Miss Skinner”.
Royal visitors in 1944
The establishment quickly gained an excellent reputation and perhaps the St Enodoc Hotel’s most exciting episode came in February 1944 when it played host to some rather important visitors. The eight-year-old Duke of Kent and younger sister, Princess Alexandra, and their little brother, Prince Michael, all came to stay in the hotel. According to the local papers the children were there for their health – they were receiving a course of treatment for hay fever, which involved injections and plenty of sea air. Their mother, Princess Marina, was said to be joining them at the hotel.
The children’s father, Prince George, who was the youngest son of King George V, had died just 18 months earlier and one wonders if the trip to Cornwall was in part intended to cheer the grieving family, while also to keep them away from the increase in bombing raids as the Luffwaffe targeted Britain in early 1944.
While for the most part the papers seem to have left the Royal visitors in peace during their stay, on the 5th February the Western Morning News did publish an image of them boarding the little ferry that would have taken them across the water from the St Enodoc Hotel to Padstow on the other side of the estuary.
Miss Webb and Miss Skinner continued to run the hotel together until around 1947 when Ethel retired and the St Enodoc was sold. Ethel Webb died in Cornwall in 1962 aged 86 years, but what happened to the ever illusive Miss Skinner is not clear.
The St Enodoc Hotel has passed through several custodians over the years since it was built by those two ambitious ladies, each leaving their mark, and is now beginning its next exciting chapter with the Ainsworths at the helm!