Beastly Bodmin Jail - Sometimes They Don't Leave...

You don't expect such a small, attractive town to house such a massive prison, but that's the surprise that awaits you in the Cornish town of Bodmin.

It's been closed since 1927, but is by no means silent. Although much of it is derelict, its corridors still echo to the clanking of chains and the moans of long dead prisoners, seeking justice for their unjust incarceration...and execution.

Bodmin Jail's restoration is a work in progress and no visitor can envy the task. Built originally as a milestone in prison design, circa 1779, the jail started off its life as a prison for debtors, serious felons, and those guilty of less serious crimes. Males and females were strictly segregated and attempts were made to ensure a less harsh approach to incarceration. Running water was provided in courtyards and boilers were on hand for hot water. Ovens were installed to bake clothes (to kill vermin). There was also a chapel and an infirmary for the sick. 
 

www.cornwall-online.co.uk

All of this led to its approval by the great 18th century penal reformer, John Howard, who visited in 1782 and proclaimed, 'By a spritied exertion, the gentlemen of this county have erected a monument of their humanity, and attention to health and morals of prisoners.'

From the mid nineteenth century, a heating and ventilation system ensured a constant temperature of 15 degrees centigrade was maintained throughout the year in all cells.

In addition, prisoners were put to productive work and paid out of the profits from the sales of the products they made. Sadly, this changed to the useless labour of the treadmill from 1824 onwards, until the Prison Act of 1898 saw a reversal of ideas. Useless labour was abolished and productive work was back in.

Between its opening and closure 148 years later, Bodmin underwent expansion and transformation. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, it took hundreds of prisoners,  when the population of the prison reached its peak. In 1887, part of it was converted into a Naval  prison.

But what of the prisoners themselves? 

Solitary confinement, hard labour, whipping and execution by hanging all took place within the walls of Bodmin Jail and there are some curious cases.

The great grandfather of writer, Nevil Shute, author of A Town Like Alice, the apocalyptic On The Beach and many others, was murdered by two brothers called William and James Lightfoot, whose public double hanging attracted a crowd of some 20,000 at noon on 13th April, 1840. They had battered Nevil Norway to death in order to rob him of the gold and silver coins he carried. Theirs was the only double hanging at Bodmin.

There are a number of stories of young women driven to desperate acts as a result of finding themselves on their own with an illegitimate child, the father having long run off. But one of the saddest, is the case of Selina Wadge, who had two children. She was at the lower end of the social scale, barely surviving in the workhouse, when she met and fell in love with a former soldier called James Westwood. According to her story, Westwood told her he would marry her but was not prepared to take on both children. The younger one, Harry, would have to be sacrificed. She drowned him by throwing him down a thirteen foot deep well, where he was found lying in three feet of water, with no signs of violence visible on his body.

She had been previously regarded as a good mother and many from the workhouse and elsewhere attested to her previous good character, but the jury found her guilty of child murder, with a recommendation for leniency. The judge wasn't prepared to grant it and she was sentenced to death by hanging.  By then, the measured drop had been introduced, which led to a swifter, more merciful death. Previously, the notorious 'short drop' had led to prisoners slowly strangling to death, taking up to twenty minutes or more.

Poor, desperate Selina was placed on suicide watch. By the day of her execution she was in a state of collapse. But she died 'without a struggle' on 15th August 1878. Her ghost is one of many said to haunt the place. She tries to reach out to small children and has been observed by them as a lady in a long dress who cries all the time. 

 

www.bodminjail.org

An earlier and more primitive jail existed where Bodmin Jail stands today and it too saw its share of prisoners, some of whom were convicted for witchcraft. Most of these were, of course, women, who were guilty of nothing more than the ability to use herbs wisely to heal all manner of ailments. One such woman was Ann Jefferies, who was born in St Teath in 1626. She unfortunately came to the attention of the Justice of the Peace in Cornwall as a result of her claims that she had travelled to magical lands populated by little people, fairies and the like. She then claimed to have been given the power of clairvoyance and healing.

www.sacred-texts.com

Incarcerated in Bodmin for witchcraft, she was sentenced to three months and was kept without food or water. This was then followed by a further three months incarceration without food and water, in the mayor's house. Amazingly, in both instances, she not only survived, she thrived, even gaining weight, and was released in astonishingly good health. She claimed it was because the fairies had kept her fed and watered. She went on to marry and move to Devon, but she kept very quiet about the fairies and the magical lands she had visited. After all, it wouldn't do to tempt fate twice, would it?

One day, I, or a friend of mine, will tell you the moving tale of Joan Wytte, the Fighting Fairy Woman of Bodmin who was also incarcerated here. You may have seen an image of her and a fleeting mention in my blog on Boscastle

But her story deserves a blog post on its own - and so it shall be. One day...

Find out more about Bodmin Jail  here

Bodmin Jail was the subject of a Most Haunted. I know I would be failing in my duty if I didn't leave you with an Yvette Fielding screamfest. Enjoy:

Boscastle - Where Witches Are Friendly and Broomsticks Optional!

On August 16th 2004, a terrifying flood threatened to wipe Boscastle off the map. It is to the inhabitants' great credit that they showed indomitable spirit in the loving restoration that has seen the reincarnation of the village into the picturesque place we see today.

So sudden and violent was the torrent that whole buildings were swept away. People lost homes and businesses,150 had to be airlifted to safety. Yet, miraculously, only eight casualties were reported and, of these, the worst injury was a broken thumb. An estimated 100mm of rain fell in one hour, making it one of the worst floods in modern UK history.

One of the casualties was the fascinating Museum of Witchcraft, right by the harbour. Over two metres of sewage and water knocked down walls and engulfed the ground floor. Maybe the many charms and good spells it housed watched over it that day because, amazingly, most of the artefacts survived. While renovation took place, books and paintings were sent to museums in Truro and Falmouth to protect them from further damp.

Today, it stands as a unique record of witchcraft through the ages, in all its many forms and manifestations. Aleister Crowley and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn rub shoulders with Baphomet, the Green Man (found in many churches) and Sea Witchcraft. Here is coral, worn to ward off curses and illness while Mermaids' purses, washed up by the sea, were treasured and preserved as symbols of good luck. (They are actually egg sacks possibly containing a baby ray or dogfish).

A copy of Daemonologie - King James I's savage treatise on the evils of witchcraft - is displayed here, along with accounts of the torture and persecution of mostly innocent women that took place over centuries.

Here too are charms, witch's tools, fortune telling and divination, mandrakes and protection magic, including two mummified cats found walled up as a protection against rats and mice and/or evil spirits. As a cat lover, I was relieved to discover that these animals weren't sacrificed or walled up alive!

Then there's Joan, the Wise Woman, reminding us of the true origins of witchcraft. The Museum has created a tableau showing a benevolent old lady, her cat familiar on her lap, waiting for someone to tap on her door in need of her help. Jars and packets of herbs and healing remedies line a nearby wall, the efficacy and use of which would all have been known to someone like her.

This little museum is an education in itself, although for the serious student, there is also an extensive library. Some of the exhibits are quite scary, others quite sexual, so it really isn't suitable for young children, but for everyone else, it's a great experience, to be topped off by a wander down the harbour past the shallow, peaceful river. Hard to imagine how violent it became just nine years ago...

Nearby is the magnificence of Tintagel, steeped in Arthurian legend but, for me, Boscastle with its simple, understated beauty and charm, captivated me and kept me in its warm embrace the whole day.

 For more information, please visit Museum of Witchcraft

To watch footage of the devastating flood:

Centenary of a Suffragette's Supreme Sacrifice

Saturday, June 1st sees the running of the annual Epsom Derby horse race and marks the centenary of the death of one of the most famous British Suffragettes. Emily Wilding Davison was born on October 11th 1872 and was a woman with a fierce determination and belief in her ideals. She defied convention and earned herself, firstly a BA from Royal Holloway College (now part of London University) and then, some years later, a First Class Honours degree from Oxford.

She was born ahead of her time. Her beliefs and values were out of kilter with the male dominated society in which she found herself. Apart from discrimination shown to women in the field of education, her most vitriolic anger was directed at the continuing stubborn refusal of a Parliament comprised solely of males to allow women the vote. The government was happy enough to collect her taxes, but wouldn't allow her the right to say who was setting them!

Sadly, Emily and other likeminded women, received no support from the monarch either. Queen Victoria stated that she did not believe women should involve themselves in politics and therefore did not need the vote.

Emmeline Pankhurst

It was inevitable that, with such strong convictions, Emily would seek out others of similar mind, which drew her inexorably towards the Suffragette movement and into the sphere of the fearless and enigmatic Pankhursts. An ardent follower, Emily was all too ready to embark on their programme of civil disobedience, arson, and destruction of property. 

She joined Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1906 and was imprisoned no less than nine times, for a month or more at a time, for crimes such as stone throwing, obstruction, breaking windows at the House of Commons, setting fire to post boxes and assaulting a vicar (a case of mistaken identity as she thought he was Chancellor the the Exchequer, David Lloyd George!). She also targeted Lloyd George on at least two further occasions, throwing stones at his car as he was travelling to a meeting and attempting to gain access to a Hall where he was delivering a speech.

As with many of the most militant suffragettes, a prison sentence meant an immediate refusal to east or drink. On one occasion, Emily barricaded herself in a prison cell to prevent her being force fed. The authorities responded by flooding her cell with ice cold water and then dragging her away, whereupon she would have had a tube forced up her nose, or down her throat into her stomach.

This inhuman and barbaric treatment was often ineptly executed, leading to the tube puncturing a lung or causing permanent injury and lifelong digestive, heart and breathing problems. Force feeding in this manner was enabled by the passing of the, so called, Cat and Mouse Act. Fellow militant, Sylvia Pankhurst suffered with serious digestive problems for the rest of her life, following repeated instances of force feeding, which occurred twice daily for the duration of the prison sentence, or until the hapless woman agreed to eat normally. Many held out until released at the end of their sentence. Emily was force fed 49 times.

On 2nd April 1911, she managed to spend the night hidden in a cupboard near the crypt chapel of the Palace of Westminster, to ensure that the census for that year recorded it as her home! Emily was nothing if not imaginative and resourceful.

Increasingly desperate to achieve her goal, there is hard evidence that Emily believed that suicide could be a serious consideration. Emmeline Pankhurst, in her autobiography, My Own Life said her fellow Suffragette believed that only loss of life 'would put an end to the intolerable torture of women.'

What went through her mind on that fateful afternoon of June 8th 1913, as the horses galloped around Tattenham Corner? Was it suicide? She was undoubtedly capable of it, but a number of factors mitigate against it. One has always been the presence of a return half of her rail ticket in her pocket and a holiday she was apparently taking in a couple of weeks time with her sister. It is also said that she could not possibly have been able to make out which was the King's horse (Anmer) from her vantage point. 

But perhaps the most compelling evidence that she merely wanted to attach something to Anmer's bridle comes in the form of a WSPU sash, retrieved from the scene at the time and, much later, sold to the writer Barbara Gordon at auction - where she bid against the Jockey Club. They obviously believed it to be genuine and a recent Channel 4 programme shows slowed down restored footage of the tragedy. At the moment she is hit by the horse, she is holding up something remarkably like a sash and appears to be trying to attach it to Anmer. For the King's horse to have crossed the finishing line wearing a sash, proclaiming 'Votes for Women' would have been a coup indeed!

The footage also shows her to be in a different position to that previously believed. It is now entirely possible she was able to see the horse's distinctive King's colours, and it is possible to see her move quickly and deliberately, under the fence and into the path of this one specific horse.

Her fatal mistake was in misjudging the speed at which they were galloping. She was knocked unconscious and died in hospital four days later, without waking from the coma into which she had sunk.

Emily Davison may not have meant to die on that day, but, given her passionate beliefs, I have no doubt she would have thought her death to be a sacrifice worth making.

Emily was buried in her hometown of Morpeth, Northumberland, where her memory is revered to this day. On her gravestone in the Church grounds, is the inscription by which she lived: 'Deeds not Words'.



Sadly, it took World War I for women's right to vote to be granted. This came in two stages, firstly in 1918 for all women 'of property aged over thirty' and then, finally, in 1928 women achieved full voting equality with men.

For a limited time, you can watch Clare Balding's fascinating Channel 4 documentary, Secrets of a Suffragette by clicking here

'Haunted' Portraits

My latest novella, The Second Wife, features a haunted portrait of the first Mrs Marchant - Emily. It frightens the life out of Chrissie, her successor.

When researching some material for guest promotional blogs, I came across a quite extraordinary idea.

Courtesy of http://www.hauntedportraits.com/

Courtesy of http://www.hauntedportraits.com/

It seems you can now buy portraits that metamorphose from perfectly normal attractive photographs or paintings, into something grotesque, skeletal, ghostland/or demonic, right before your eyes..

 They are marketed as being perfect for Halloween - or any time of the year if you live in a haunted house. Apparently there are no mechanical or electrical bits to worry about. You just hang them and then watch what happens...

It's certainly a novel way to redecorate - and maybe a radical gift idea for that horror loving friend who has everything.

I can (kind of) see them on the wall of an old, creaking house but am not at all sure about the concept when applied to a modern three bedroomed semi in leafy suburbia.


Mind you, if you want to be the star of the show, you can always order a customised ghost portrait - featuring yourself:

Courtesy of http://www.hauntedportraits.com/

If that's not daring enough for you, remember the portraits that used to move around in the Harry Potter books and films? Always thought it would be fun to own one?

Try these: