The first Bodmin Gaol was built in 1779. In 1860, the same site was enlarged, redeveloped and provided with new walls and buildings; structures which were more adequate to the task of imprisoning large numbers of male and female convicts in reasonably humane and safe conditions. The prisoners were expected to work hard and obey strict rules, but there seems to have been little in the way of unnecessary cruelty. Those who refused to toil or follow orders faced a variety of stern punishments - solitary confinement, loss of light, reduction or withdrawal of food or extensions to their sentences. In serious cases, they could even find themselves on the end of a whip.

Hard Labour & Punishments

Some of the work imposed on the convicts was deliberately designed to be tedious or exhausting. Oakum picking (teasing fibres from old, often tar-hardened ropes by hand - in order to recycle the materials) was a staple occupation in British jails; it was hard on the fingers and time-consuming. Prisoners were expected to produce at least 4.5 pounds of oakum every day.

Bodmin Gaol had a big treadmill - a stepped wheel about 6 feet in diameter and 80 feet long, with around 20 treadboards. The wheel was housed in a structure that contained four sections - each section had enough room for 8 men. Thus, up to 32 prisoners could be made to turn the treadmill at any one time. Some jails with these devices were determined to ensure that the energy expended by the convicts served no purpose at all - the idea being that the work would be even more bitter if its sole purpose was punishment. But there were institutions which put the revolutions of the wheel to practical ends. In Beaumaris Gaol (Wales), the treadmill operated a ventilation system that kept the cellblocks supplied with clean air; at Bodmin, the wheel was used to grind corn. In 1827, a convict named Sowden refused to take his place on the treadmill; other prisoners followed his example. The guards retored control by lashing Sowden until he gave in and got on the wheel. The meaning of this example was not lost on his fellow inmates; the riot ended then and there and everybody went back to work.

Living Conditions

However, despite such instances of brutality, the prison was not like a B-Movie Hellhole. Every room and cell was kept scrupulously clean and many convicts, particularly the younger ones, were encouraged to attend educational classes and religious instruction. Each cell was equipped with clean bedsheets, a pillow, blankets, a jug of fresh water, a washing bowl, a slop pot, plus a broom and cleaning materials. Good conduct earned a steadily-increasing range of privileges - including books, visitors and permission to send or receive letters.

In 1869, the Admiralty began sending naval prisoners to Bodmin; in 1887, a complete wing was placed under the control of the Royal Navy; two houses were built within the walls to accomodate the officers who worked there. By 1901, after a series of changes, the Naval Wing contained 105 cells (on four storeys). It was closed in 1922; at the time, it was the last Naval Prison in Britain.

Executions

Between 1785 and 1802, 22 Executions were carried out at traditional hanging places on Bodmin Moor. Then, until 1815, the old gibbets and gallows trees were (presumably at the discretion of the authorities) increasingly replaced by the use of a temporary scaffold erected outside the walls of the Gaol. 9 hangings took place during this period.

From 1820 until 1862, 18 public executions were solely staged close to the Gaol. Then, after 16 years without a visit from the hangman, the first execution was enacted inside the prison walls - visible only to the official participants, legal onlookers and selected journalists. From 1878 to 1909, there were 4 (non-public) executions - the final 2 used an execution shed with a specially constructed ‘long drop’ beneath its trapdoors.

Our Visit - The Gaol’s Current State

Our team visited the Gaol on a bright, warm and sunny day; so the very dark and surprisingly cool conditions inside the cellblocks were even more noticeable. The prison is in semi-ruined state. When it ceased to be a place of incarceration and passed into the hands of private owners, roofs were removed (to acquire the lead) and attempts were made to demolish the buildings with dynamite. The explosions failed in their object because the locally-sourced limestone mortar and granite blocks had chemically bonded. As a result, it was not possible to reduce the stonework to uniformly-sized pieces which could be resold.

Many areas of the prison are either missing or in a tumbled-down state; you can walk through most of the cellblocks, but their appearance is misleading to visitors who don’t have the benefit of prior research - we overheard quite a few people muttering about the ‘awful’ conditions that the inmates must have endured; the current owners have certainly done their best to lead the uninitiated to believe that the place was run like a medieval dungeon. As all the cells are dirty, generally littered with rubble and stripped of their former fittings, you would never guess that each of them used to be tidy, well-lit and heated in the cold months. Ineptly-made mannequins (which often look like the work of blind pre-schoolers) are posed in ways which suggest abject misery and give the false suggetion that no beds, chairs or tables were provided.

A Strange Encounter

Not surprisingly, we had some critical things to say about the way the Gaol was being presented. It was in this frame of mind that Stephanie - a member of our group - came upon a woman who was wearing a long, old fashioned grey dress; her clothing was (to use Stephanie’s description) ‘tatty’ and her hair was very untidy. Stephanie was already disenchanted by the inaccurate (mis)information offered to visitors, so the sight of somebody dressed in period costume - presumably one of those actresses who gets paid to jump out of dark corners and shout ‘Boo!’ at tourists - was the final straw.

She told the woman that she ought to pay more attention to her clothes and hair...they were extremely unconvincing...did she think that she was acting in a horror movie? Stephanie was just about to get started on the amateurish state of the displays when the silent lady ended the one-sided conversation by walking through a wall.

We found Stephanie half an hour later...in the bar with a stiff drink in front of her. She refused to return to the cellblocks for quite some time. Eventually, I persuaded her to go to the remains of the Naval Wing with me.

“Come In Here”

We walked in the pleasant, bright sunlight to the entrance leading to that area. There were a couple of other visitors already there, but they left after a few moments and we took the opportunity to take a few pictures. The roof and all the upper floors of the cell block are now gone, so we were at ground level in a wide, open corridor or hallway with cells running along the two longest sides. Most of them, as could be plainly seen from our position, were gutted and full of rubble.

As we passed one of the cells, we both heard a slow, quiet, almost whispering male voice say: “Come in here”. The speaker did not sound threatening or distressed. In fact, there was a semi-friendly, quite inquisitive tone to the request. We thought it was another visitor who wished to share some discovery with us. But when we went to the entrance of the cell, we found that it was completely filled with fallen masonry; the only signs of life in there were ferns and weeds that had colonised the gaps and cracks between the trashed stonework.

Orbs and Anomalies

Everybody took pictures at the Gaol. Orbs and other anomalies were visible in some of our photographs, the thumbnail above, middle right, was taken through what appeared to be a viewing hole showing the exercise area below.

We had an unusually high rate of battery and camera failure during our visit. One camera failed to work at all in the cellblocks (though it worked fine when used to take some snaps on the return journey). I was surprised to find that my favourite digital camera declared itself to have no space for further images much sooner than I expected - later, I found that its internal memory had partially ‘died’ at some stage during that photo session. Two flashguns were stopped after just a few pictures by drained batteries (despite being fitted with fresh batteries that morning). As regular readers will know, we experienced problems of this kind at a trailer park which proved (against all expectations) to be one of the most scarily active locations we have ever investigated.

Click  above thumbnails to see complete full size images.