Bodmin is one of the oldest towns in Cornwall, with a religious foundation in the 6th Century by St Petroc. It was the largest town and main religious centre in Cornwall in 1086 when it was documented in the Domesday Book:
The Church of St Petroc holds Bodmin. There is 1 hide of land, and land for 4 ploughs. There are 30 acres of pasture and 6 acres of scrubland. St Petroc has 68 houses and 1 market. The whole is worth 25s.
Bodmin received its first Royal Charter in 1563 from Elizabeth I which established it as a self-governing town. However, it wasn't until early Victorian times that it took over from Launceston as the County Town of Cornwall. In late Victorian times, the administrative functions began to move to Truro once the Great Western Railway arrived and the cathedral was built. Despite Truro being the cathedral city and administrative centre, Bodmin is still the County Town of Cornwall.
"The Keep", which today houses Cornwall’s Regimental Museum, was originally built in 1859 to provide stores and a parade ground for the Royal Cornwall Rangers Militia Regiment. This was later extended into Victoria Barracks in 1881 with the addition of many other buildings, including separate soldiers' quarters for the newly formed Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI). The barracks played a major role in the life of the town and the county for over 100 years. During the Cold War, the barracks housed a Russian language school, the "School for Spies".
The Museum is housed in the original home of Cornwall’s Regiment. The Victorian Keep was built in the style of a French Chateau, and many original features of this Grade II listed building still exist, including the great granite staircase which visitors climb to reach the museum’s collections, and the military Police cells which are dressed to the Cold War era. The museum also holds the DCLI and LI archives, and a reference library where a team of research volunteers help over 300 families a year to discover their military past.
When the London to Penzance line was built in the 1800s, the initial intention was to run this through Bodmin to link with the Padstow line, running on what is now the Camel Trail. However, to cut cost, the line was never built through Bodmin and instead a station was built at Glynn Bridge (now Bodmin Parkway).
In 1887, a branch line was built into Bodmin from the mainline station now known as Bodmin Parkway to a station known as Bodmin General. A year later it was also connected to the Bodmin and Wadebridge railway via Boscarne junction, providing a link between the main line and the railway running from Wenfordbridge to Padstow.
Although the station closed to passengers in 1967, it remained in use for freight trains until 1983. Although many of the buildings and structures were demolished by British Rail, the station building remained and the Bodmin-Wenford railway is now run from here.
The Bodmin and Wenford heritage steam railway runs for 6.5 miles between Bodmin Parkway station and Boscarne Junction on the two sections of branch line built to link Bodmin General station to the main line and to the Padstow - Wenfordbridge line. This is Cornwall's only full-size (standard gauge) railway still operated by steam locomotives (the Launceston Steam Railway uses smaller gauge locomotives and tracks originally used in the Welsh quarries).
Red valerian grows in the wall along Beacon Road.
Red valerian is also known as kiss-me-quick, fox's brush and Devil's or Jupiter's beard and can be seen flowering in early summer in hedgerows near the coast. The plant is originally from the Mediterranean and is thought to have been introduced as a garden plant roughly around the Tudor period. It has since become naturalised and the brightly-coloured flowers provide nectar for bees, butterflies and moths. Over time the base of the stems can get as thick as a small tree trunk which can lever apart the walls in which it can often be seen growing.
Red valerian occurs with three main flower colours: about 50% of plants are deep pink, 40% are red and around 10% have white flowers. Very pale pink also occurs but is much rarer. These distinct forms are an example of flower colour polymorphism. The red pigment within the flowers is an anthrocyanin compound and the different colours are due to different amounts of the pigment.
The large stone on the pavement of Fore Street near Lloyd's Bank commemorates the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 - a Cornish uprising which began in Bodmin against the newfangled religion being imposed by the Tudor monarchy and English Church. The earliest recorded execution in Bodmin is that of the Mayor, hanged on a gallows near where the Turret Clock is today at Mount Folly for his part in the uprising. Until fairly recently, this was re-enacted with subsequent Mayors being dropped rather realistically on a harness, much to the surprise of visitors to the town!
The wildflowers along the track are popular with butterflies in summer.
When a caterpillar is still developing, it grows a small group of cells - known as an imaginal disc - for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly. When a caterpillar pupates, it digests itself, releasing enzymes which dissolve all of its tissues into a soup leaving only the imaginal discs. These then act as seeds from which the adult butterfly is resurrected.
Some work has been done in the area to try to control ash dieback.
Ash trees in Britain are now under threat from a highly destructive fungal pandemic similar to Dutch Elm Disease, known as chalara or "ash dieback". Rather than being spread by beetles, this one is simply carried by the wind. Work is underway to try to find genetic factors which allow some trees to resist infection in order to breed a new generation of disease-tolerant trees.
The Living Ash project started with over 150,000 seedlings gathered from a wide range of areas, planted during 2013 in locations with the most ash dieback. In 2018, grafts were taken from the 575 trees which appear to have resisted infection and planted alongside 420 grafts from trees in woodlands and hedgerows which also seem to have survived infection. The idea is that these can all cross-pollinate to maximise genetic diversity and it is hoped this will eventually become a source of seeds of disease-resistant trees.
Similarly to Dutch Elm Disease, the chalara fungal disease that causes ash dieback is originally from Asia and the ash species there have co-evolved to be tolerant. In case attempts to breed disease resistant native ash trees are unsuccessful, work is underway to create hybrid species that closely resemble the Common Ash but with the disease resistance from an Asian parent plant.
Celtic wrestling has been established in Cornwall since mediaeval times with Cornish, Devon and Breton wrestlers taking part in inter-Celtic matches since at least 1402. The Cornish form of wrestling is similar to a Breton style known as Gouren (which simply means "wrestling" in Breton). The objective is to throw your opponent and make him land as flat as possible on his back. The more of his back that touches the ground, the higher the number of points. Tough jackets are worn to allow opponents to grip each other.
Near the monument on Beacon Hill is a circular earthwork known locally as the Wrestling Ring as Cornish Wrestling took place here. Previous to this, it is thought to have been a fire beacon, hence the name of the hill. It's possible that the beacon may have itself used a prehistoric barrow as its basis (barrows are often found on the top of prominent hills such as this and several were recorded here in 1813).
The 44-metre tall monument was built in 1857 by the townspeople of Bodmin to honour the life and work in India of Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert who was born in Bodmin in 1785. At the age of fifteen he joined the Bengal Infantry as a cadet and eventually rose to the rank of major-general. He became a national hero following his conquests in Northern India and (apart from the Duke of Wellington) was the only army officer whose portrait appeared on an army medal.
The Bodmin Beacon Local Nature Reserve was designated in 1994 on what was formerly known as Bodmin Downs and covers 87 acres surrounding the Gilbert Monument on Beacon Hill. The meadows and community woodland provide a range of habitats for birds and insects.
Robert Robartes was the son of the Earl of Radnor and had the title "Viscount Bodmin" during the Stuart times of the Civil War. He purchased Lanhydrock House where his family have lived since then.
Viscount ranks above a Baron (the lowest peerage title) but below an Earl (with Marquess and Duke forming the highest two peerage ranks). When intermarriage resulted in the inheritance of multiple titles, the oldest son was often given the father's lower-rank title whilst he was still alive and then the higher rank one was inherited on his death.
Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Robert Robartes sat in the House of Commons for 19 years before becoming ambassador to Denmark. He died whilst in the Danish court at only 48 and whilst his father was still alive. He therefore never inherited the title of Earl which passed to his eldest son on the death of his father.
Tucked behind the houses towards the bottom of the hill, there is a large chapel (now Wetherspoons) on the right which dates from Victorian times when Methodism was popular in Cornwall. The organ, built in 1886, is still present.
By the time John Wesley died, the majority of Methodists were not attending Anglican church regularly, and following his death a Methodist church was formed, separate from the Anglican church. In the first half of the 19th Century, the Methodist movement fragmented into several different factions, often each with its own chapel in the same town. The Bible Christian movement was one of these, founded in North Cornwall in 1815 by William O'Bryan from Luxulyan. His followers are also known as the Bryonites, although after falling out with most of his ministers, O'Bryan emigrated to America. In 1907, the Bible Christian movement amalgamated with other Methodist groups to form the United Methodist Church.
The cross was made in 2002 of granite from De Lank quarries.
The De Lank quarries are on Bodmin Moor between Blisland and St Breward. The quarries lie along the bed of the De Lank river, which runs through a culvert beneath the quarry workings. Buildings and monuments that have incorporated silver-grey granite include Tower Bridge, The Royal Opera House and monuments to Churchill and Marx. At the Eden Project, "The Seed" in "The Core" was quarried from here.
The Mason's Arms was originally located on Fore Street next to Bell Lane but was relocated twice in the first half of the 19th Century before settling in its present position.
As you go down the hill, the large building opposite was built as a Bible Christian chapel.
In the first half of the 19th Century, the Methodist movement fragmented into several different factions, often each with its own chapel in the same town. The Bible Christian movement was one of these, founded in 1815 by William O'Bryan from Luxulyan and his followers are also known as the Bryonites, although after falling out with most of his ministers, O'Bryan emigrated to America.
The Coast and Clay Trails cycle route crosses at the bottom of the hill.
The Coast and Clay Trails is a 45 mile public access network of tracks and roads around St Austell. The trails were first opened as "The Clay Trails" in 2005 as part of a restoration programme to provide new habitats for flora and fauna. The trails are described as "multi-use" although are principally aimed at cyclists, with many sections of the routes being on Public Highways (quiet lanes where possible) and link up with National Cycle Route 3 to Bodmin and Truro. For walkers, the off-road sections provide some additional links across the Rights of Way network.
The cross was found lying on a heap of stones near the jail in the 1800s and re-erected. In 1968 it was hit by a lorry and broke into 3 pieces which have subsequently been stuck back together. The cross may have marked the pilgrim route to Scarlett's Well.
Scholars speculate that the Celtic Cross (a crucifix with a circular ring) developed from the sun cross (a cross inside a circle), a common symbol in artefacts of Prehistoric Europe, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods. When Christianity came to the Celtic regions, Christians extended the bottom spoke of this familiar symbol, to remind them of the cross on which their new Saviour was crucified.
Bodmin Jail is a historic former prison situated in the town of Bodmin, on the south-west edge of Bodmin Moor. Bodmin Jail was built in 1779 by prisoners of war and was a milestone in prison design and progressiveness. It was light and airy and it was the first British prison where inmates had individual sleeping cells. There was hot water and an infirmary for sick prisoners. It was separated into three isolated areas for felons, misdemeanants and debtors. Males and females were also segregated. Prisoners worked to make products which the governor sold and paid them from the profits.
In 1861, the jail was rebuilt as even despite being extended, the original building was not large enough to accommodate all those "doing time". Towards the end of the First World War, national treasures including the Domesday Book, Coronation Rolls and all State Papers were stored in the Jail. The Jail finally closed in 1927 and, since then, there has been no prison in the county.
Cock's Well, located on the corner of Chapel Lane, supplied water for the houses nearby and a blacksmith opposite. The present well is dated 1849 but the spring here may have been in use before this date. In 1881, the water became contaminated with a typhoid-like infection which resulted in 60 cases of fever and 13 deaths. Two of the fatalities were the blacksmiths who drank a lot of water due to their hot work.
The well at Bree Schute is known as the Eye Well as the water was reputed to heal eye complaints. The stone tablet dating from 1700 indicates the well was already in use by the Civil War period. In 1872, a Rivers Commission report found the water to be highly contaminated and a source of possible illnesses.
The small passage between the shops on the right-hand side of the road is known as Arnold's Passage.
John Arnold was born in Bodmin in 1736 and worked initially as an apprentice for his father who was a clockmaker before moving to Holland and South East England to work as a watchmaker. He made the smallest watch ever, fitted on a ring, as a gift for George III. He was the first person to design a watch that was both practical and accurate and he introduced the term "chronometer" and largely invented the modern mechanical watch.
St Francis of Assisi began preaching in 1207 and two years later the Franciscan Order was founded, requiring monks to live in austerity to emulate the life of Jesus. A group of Friars reached England in 1224 and the Franciscan movement spread quickly to the principal towns across England. It is known that Bodmin Friary was built before 1253 but not exactly when. It was located on Mount Folly where the Shire Hall and Courthouse now stand, and included a fairly large church which was demolished in the 19th Century to make room for the Courthouse. Remains of the cemetery have been found beneath the Shire Hall.
Bodmin's Shire Hall was the County Court, completed in 1838 and in use for 150 years until 1988 when it was replaced by new County Courts in Truro. The building included two courtrooms, two judges' dressing rooms and 30 small holding cells with a communal washing trough. One of the courtrooms is still intact and used for a re-enactment of the Charlotte Dymond murder case.
A museum in Bodmin is documented in 1843 which fell into neglect and was resurrected twice, with the current Town Museum opening in 1983 in the ground floor of the Public Rooms. The Town Museum has stones from Bodmin's Augustinian priory, a bell from the mediaeval Friary, the fire engine that was used to put out the Lanhydrock fire in 1881, and lots more from the Victorian period including Cornish kitchen and blacksmith displays. Entry is free.
In the mediaeval period following the Norman Conquest, the Augustinian Canons established a priory in Bodmin which became the largest religious house in Cornwall. It is thought that the priory was first established in the 12th Century around 1120, before the Franciscan friary was built at Mount Folly in the 13th Century. The priory was located in the area that is now mostly a park on the opposite side of the road from St Thomas Beckett's chapel which would have been several centuries old when the priory was first built. The pond in the park was originally the priory fishpond. Following Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the mediaeval priory buildings were sold off and gradually demolished and replaced. In the 18th Century, Priory House (at the bottom of the park) was built and the surrounding area landscaped, burying the remains of the priory which still survive below the ground. During garden excavations, the remains of a dovecote and a private chapel were found between Priory House and the pond.
St Petroc's church, which is the largest parish church in Cornwall, was built largely in the 15th Century after a mediaeval crowdfunding campaign where 460 householders donated money or nails. However, the base of the church tower remains from an early 12th Century stone church and the Norman font is also from this period. The 15th Century tower originally had a spire one hundred feet high until this was destroyed by lightning in 1699. The church underwent a fairly drastic restoration in the 1870s during which many of the mediaeval features were lost including a Norman door.
The ruin in the churchyard is the remains of a chapel, recorded in 1377, making it the oldest surviving religious building in the town (albeit as a ruin). The chapel is dedicated to St Thomas Becket - the Archbishop of Canterbury who fell out with the King Henry II during Norman times. Beckett was murdered by four knights who quite possibly misinterpreted the King's words of exasperation as an order of execution. The chapel was used as Bodmin's first Grammar School and later as a school for girls before it went out of use in the late 1850s and fell into ruin.
Prince Chula Chakrabongse was born in 1908 at the palace in Bangkok and was sent to England for his education. In 1932, a revolution ended the Siamese monarchy and the country was renamed as Thailand in 1939. Chula returned to England and married an English woman. They lived at Tredethy near Hellandbridge during the 1940s and 50s. The prince was a generous benefactor in the Bodmin area but perhaps his most well-known donation is the granite dog drinking bowl at the entrance to Priory Park given to Bodmin town in memory of his dogs.
The name "buttercup" is thought to have come from a mediaeval belief that cows eating the flowers gave butter its yellow colour. In fact this couldn't be further from the truth as the plant contains toxins which make it taste acrid and is therefore avoided by grazing animals.
The Latin name of the buttercup, Ranunculus, means "little frog" and said to be because the plants like wet conditions. It is thought it may have come via a derogatory name for people who lived near marshes!
There are a few different species of buttercup. One of most common is meadow buttercup (unsurprisingly found in meadows!) which is the tallest member of the family. Another common one is creeping buttercup which as the name suggests spreads through rhizomes so is more likely to be found in dense clumps in damp places. Its leaves are also more golden and glossy.
Meadow buttercups spread across a field relatively slowly as most seeds fall quite close to the parent and although it has a creeping root system capable of propagating new plants, this only extends a fairly short distance from each plant (unlike creeping buttercup which has a much more extensive root system). Because grazing animals avoid buttercups due to their acrid taste, this allows them to accumulate over time. The combination of these factors allows the number of meadow buttercups in a field to be used as an indicator of how long it's been used for grazing.
Buttercups produce a toxin called protoanemonin, which is at its highest concentration when flowering. It is thought that buttercups may be partly responsible for Equine Grass Sickness. Fortunately the toxin is quite unstable and drying of the plant in haymaking leads to polymerisation into non-toxic anemonin. Buttercups are also toxic to dogs, cats and humans. They have a bitter taste which puts dogs off eating the plants but pollen can collect on fur and be ingested, particularly by cats when they clean themselves. A man in France who drank a glass of juice made from buttercups suffered severe colic after four hours and was dead the next day!
The Hole in the Wall pub was the debtors prison from 1749 to 1779 and for a period, the building was known as "The Old Prison". If that isn't quirky enough, there is half a stuffed lion and an elephant's testicle behind the bar. The pub's visitors' books from the 1940s to the 1980s are in the town museum.
At the bottom of steps of the Shire Hall is a stone commemorating the Victoria Cross for bravery awarded to James Finn during WW1. The events are documented in the London Gazette of 1916:
After a night attack he was one of a small party which dug-in in front of our advanced line and about 300 yards from the enemy's trenches. Seeing several wounded men lying out in front he went out and bandaged them all under heavy fire, making several journeys in order to do so. He then went back to our advanced trench for a stretcher and, being unable to get one, he himself carried on his back a badly wounded man into safety. He then returned and, aided by another man who was wounded during the act, carried in another badly wounded man.
In March 1917, Finn was wounded during a battle 50 miles north of Baghdad. He was hit by another bullet the next day as he was being taken by stretcher to the field ambulance, and died.
Normally such a commemoration is in the town of birth, and Finn was born in Truro, but as he lived most of life in Bodmin, it was agreed that his commemoration should be here.
Barnecutt's shops now stretch across mid Cornwall to Launceston and Redruth but the one in Bodmin is the original, opened by Malcolm Barnecutt in 1983. Malcolm retired in 2013 and his son James now runs the business. The bakery café is the old Guildhall used by the parish and Borough Council in the 1900s. Prior to this, during the 1800s, it was the Magistrates Court.
The building beside the Shire Hall is the Public Rooms, built in 1891. Since 1983, the ground floor has been used for the town museum. In January 2017, the building was sold to a developer for create a 4 screen Cinema.
The town of Bodmin is thought to have grown from a location originally settled in the late 5th or early 6th Century by a hermit known as St Guron. In AD 518, St Petroc travelled inland from his original settlement at Padstow and was invited to stay by Guron. Petroc remained and founded a monastery in Bodmin whilst Guron moved "about a day's journey to the south" to Gorran Churchtown near Gorran Haven.
During medieval times, barbers also performed surgery on customers. The original pole had a brass basin at the top (representing a vessel in which leeches were kept!) and bottom (representing a basin that received the blood!). The pole itself represented the staff that the patient gripped during the procedure. After the formation of the United Company of Barber Surgeons in 1540, a law was made that barbers should use a red-and-white pole and the surgeons should use a solely red pole.
When rotated, the stripes on a barber's pole create an optical illusion that the stripes are moving vertically. There is also an audio equivalent of the illusion known as a Shepard tone.
The bicycle was invented in the 19th Century, initially without any form of propulsion - pushed along with feet and free-wheeled downhill.
By the 1840s, pedals had been fixed to one of the wheels resulting in propulsion albeit difficult to control - in 1842 a gentleman in Scotland "bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" was fined five shillings for knocking over a young girl.
By 1885, bicycles with a chain drive and pneumatic tyres resembling modern bicycles were being manufactured in England. These were known initially as "safety bicycles".
More than a billion bicycles have since been produced and since the 1970s the production of bicycles has increased substantially above that of cars - there are now more than double the number of bicycles produced than cars each year.
Squirrels are rodents, closely related to chipmunks and slightly more distantly to dormice. The word "squirrel" originates from an ancient Greek word meaning "shadow-tailed", referring to the bushy tail of a squirrel. A family group of squirrels is known as a "drey" (also the word for a squirrel nest). A group of unrelated squirrels is known as a "scurry", though squirrels tend not to hang out in groups.
Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK from the USA in the late 19th Century and within decades they had replaced the native red squirrel in most parts of the country.
Compared to red squirrels, grey squirrels are able to eat a wider diet (including acorns), are larger so can survive colder winters, and are better able to survive in the fragmented habitats created by urbanisation. They are also thought to be carriers of a squirrel pox virus which they usually recover from but has been fatal to red squirrels, although red squirrels are now also developing some immunity.
To date, culling of grey squirrels has not reversed their domination of woodland habitat and alternative approaches such as planting food with contraceptives are being explored as a means to control the population. The theory is that infertile squirrels can compete for food against fertile squirrels, whereas culling can create a glut of food resulting in a higher number of squirrels surviving which replace those that were exterminated. Natural predators such as goshawks or pine martens also remove more grey squirrels than red squirrels. This is because red squirrels are more savvy having co-evolved with the predators so for example they recognise the scent of pine martens and actively avoid areas with this.
Squirrels assess each of their acorns before burying them. If an acorn is too light (which suggests it might have a hole), the squirrel will eat it immediately rather than risking it going mouldy.
In order to later find the nuts that they've buried, squirrels need to be organised. Some species of squirrel have been studied and found to structure their hoards by type of nut e.g. burying all their acorns under one tree and all their conkers under another. This is equivalent to us organising all the veg onto one shelf of the fridge to make it easier to remember where to look for them.
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
Squirrels eyes are positioned on the sides of their head which allows them to spot predators approaching from behind them. When a squirrel spots a predator, its runs away in a zigzag pattern. This confuses many of their predators but unfortunately it doesn't work well for cars.
Young squirrels suffer a high mortality rate in the wild and less than one in three make it to adulthood. The ones that do, live on average for about 6 years, although a lucky one can live to about 12 years old. In captivity, where there are neither predators, cars nor cold winters to contend with, they can reach 20 years old.
By using their tail as a parachute, squirrels are able to survive falls from high trees. This allows them to attempt risky jumps between treetops that don't always work out. They are one of the few mammals that can (but not always) survive an impact at their terminal velocity i.e. if a squirrel jumped out of an aeroplane, it may well survive.
In urban areas in cold countries such as Canada, a black form of the grey squirrel is more common which is able to withstand the cold better both by retaining more heat and also having a slower metabolism. In wilderness areas where predators are more common, the black squirrels don't seem to do so well, perhaps because they are less camouflaged against trees than the grey ones.
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