Bodmin Jail after its partial conversion to a visitor attraction and hotel
Twelve Architects
Bodmin Jail, also known as Cornwall County Gaol, on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, was originally built in 1779.[1] It was designed by the military engineer Sir John Call,[2] and constructed by French prisoners of war.[1] Following the nationalisation of all county jails in 1877 it was renamed H. M. Prison Bodmin.[3]
The jail was originally designed to hold 100 prisoners, mainly debtors and those guilty of minor offences.[4] It incorporated many new ideas for the humane treatment of prisoners, including individual cells, running water and the complete segregation of males and females. By 1851 the prison buildings were declared to be no longer fit for purpose, and the construction of a new jail on a much larger site began in 1856. The work was completed in 1860, when the remaining original buildings were demolished. The new prison had a total of 220 cells: 149 for men, 51 for women, 8 punishment cells, and 12 reception cells.[5]
Part of the complex was converted for use as a naval prison in 1888, as the Royal Navy preferred that their prisoners should not mix with civilian convicts.[6]
At its peak in 1908 Bodmin Jail housed 936 prisoners.[7] The women’s section was closed in 1911, followed by the men’s section in 1916. The naval prison closed in 1923, and the jail was officially decommissioned in 1927.[1] The remains of the original 18th-century buildings were designated a Grade II listed buildingStructure of particular architectural and/or historic interest deserving of special protection. in 1969, and have been converted into a prison museum.[4] Other buildings on site were converted into a hotel.[1]
Hauntings
Like many old buildings Bodmin Jail has stories of hauntings, among them that of William Hampton, in 1909 the last man to be hanged in the county.[8][a]Fifty-five executions were carried out at Bodmin Jail, eight of them of women.[9]
In 2005 the jail was featured on the TV show Most Haunted, in which the parapsychologist Ciarán O’Keeffe exposed the show’s resident psychic Derek Acorah as a fake. O’Keeffe fed Acorah false information about a dead South African jailer called Kreed Kafer – an anagram of “Derek Faker” – and then saw the medium “possessed” by him on the live show.[10]