St Columb Major

St Columb Major is what happens when a town builds itself a church big enough for a cathedral and then quietly gets on with farming. It sits on its plateau six miles from Newquay, close enough to smell the surf wax and far enough that nobody in a wetsuit has ever accidentally wandered in. Twice a year the whole place shuts down to chase a silver ball through the streets in a game with roughly two rules, both of them negotiable, and the rest of the year the pubs discuss it. The bypass took the traffic away in the seventies and the town has never once asked for it back.