From Glorious St. Ives to Bodmin Prison

We started our day with a traditional English Breakfast.   

Reading from left to right--that's a kiwi, rasher of bacon, hashbrown, sausage, beans, scrambled egg, and grilled tomato.  Yum!

I’ve become quite fond of this fare—sans blood pudding.  I suppose I should try it in the name of adventure—maybe tomorrow.  Well sated, we packed up and walked 20 minutes back to the coach for our trip to St. Ives.

The journey took about 90 minutes, and our Jedi Coach Master Mark

was on the verge of doubting his mad maneuvering skills when he realized he was on the right path after all and deftly zipped around the zigzag turns into the public carpark

by St. Ives Community Center high on a hill overlooking this gorgeous little town.  

We disembarked and started the slalom down the steepest paths I’ve seen.  I overheard one of our students suggest that the path we were on made Holywell (aka Holy Hell) hill in Worcester look tame.  

Once down in the city centre we got serious about meeting our goals.  Many of the students had joined  me in the Cream Tea campaign and we started scoping out possibilities. 

My fellow travelers and I investigated a number of shops, and picked up some lovely delicacies, such as Mississippi Mud Pie and Bailey’s Fudge.  They assured me they could still manage cream tea, so we headed to the beach.  There was a lovely little restaurant  which seemed promising, although all of the beach-front seats were taken.  The cream tea was good, but I have to say—Luciana at Cathedral Café is still winning this contest.  

As we headed out to explore the coast, we espied the birthday girl.  She was thrilled with her gift, but I inadvertently gave her another “gift” she declared unforgettable.  The gulls here were madly brazen—as they are in most coastal commercial spots—and were squawking up a storm…so much so you couldn’t hear yourself think.  I’d had enough of their raucous squawks and started squawking right back at them.   

The weather was most cooperative and we found ourselves feeling quite warm.  Some of the students rolled up their trouser legs and waded in to the sea.  

We continued down a bit and found a lovely little church—“St. Ia's" also known as "St. Iva’s”—named for an Irish born saint who came to Cornwall in 777.  It was such a sweet church, and we had a very kind docent who willingly shared many a story.  She talked about the beauty of the stained glass 

and lamented Henry the VIII's destruction of religious items--including stained glass windows-- during his rampage against Catholic institutions.  "Henry VIII has a lot to answer for," she said. Unfortunately, my shots weren’t very good.

I took this photo of the tower of the St. Ives church.  This is a very familiar architectural style (very similar to the Worcester Cathedral)

This is my photo of the church's 15th century baptismal font. 

I found a few images from the church's website which I didn't successfully photograph with my own camera.

This is called a wagon roof--hand-painted and gilded in 1962.

The docent said these figures survived King Henry VIII--I couldn't find much detail on them.

The altar is made of alabaster.  It was very beautiful.

I cut my visit short, anxious to be on time for our 1:25 re-boarding, and headed up to the car park.  Regardless of depriving myself of more of what St. Ives had to offer, I could still take in deep breaths of that lovely sea air.

At 1:30 sharp, we were back in the bus heading north to Bodmin.  This jail (or gaol) seemed like an interesting spot to visit.   

British gaols in this part of the world were home to some pretty dicey folk (murderers, burglars, baby killers and the like), but they also incarcerated the barely culpable—thieves of cow mow, tools, as well as ladies of the evening who happened to be turned out of their “house” and got caught sleeping rough.  Additionally, the debtor’s prison was adjacent to the site for criminals (of both the civic and military variety).  

This was a curious site, to say the least.  We found ourselves walking through a gate, just past a chaplain’s cottage.  The chaplain’s cottage was actually quite attractive.   

That's a statue of the Buddha in the window.

I thought that boded well.  We followed the signs for the tour and found ourselves in the Bodmin Jail Restaurant.  As we were walking up the stairs, my friend whispered, “they only have three of four hygiene stars.”  Good thing we weren’t planning on eating there.  

Our director announced our presence and our interest in taking the tour.  A middle-aged man who had been chatting with three youngish women (wearing very high, open-toed heels and leopard print pants), indicated he would be right with us.  When he returned, he was wearing a loose-fitting maroonish jacket with a Bodmin Jail emblem which needed to be re-attached.

He started our tour outside by a gallows set up in a garage-like stall.   

Our guide said prisoners were greeted harshly when they first arrived and were told they were not permitted to speak for six weeks.  He turned to me and asked if I understood.  I nodded my head.  He then turned to our youngest member and asked her if she understood.  She said “yes” and then he told her she would have been whipped with a cat of nine tails—a torture device featuring nine leather straps fitted with fish hooks.  I found myself wondering how appropriate this tour was going to be for young people. 

 

In the gallows stall, there was a “loose” (noose) and two extra ropes, along with a dour looking mannequin in the background.  The guide made some distinction between the American noose, and the British collar ("loose"?) used for hanging, but I didn’t discern the distinction he was trying to make.  He went in to some detail about the execution process and duration, indicating that it took about a half-hour until the prisoner died, but that prisoners could occasionally take longer (45 minutes to an hour).   

Our guide made a rather big deal about how the females who were hanged were treated differently than the males.  Apparently, the male bodies were buried but the female bodies were taken back to the prison for dissection.  Our director said it was for medical reasons, but I didn’t hear the guide give that explanation.  The guide seemed to warm to the subject though, and returned to it repeatedly through the tour.

We walked around the corner.  There were a couple of surprises in the window.

Our guide discussed how popular hangings were with the public.  He mentioned that the word “gala” was derived from “gallows” because of the festivities associated with executions.  One of the signs posted around the site indicated that at one such execution attracting over 20,000 spectators, area butchers were able to sell meat at higher cost and made lots of money .

We then entered the “carcass” of a prison block with cells lining walls on about six or seven levels.  

This area resembled an atrium gone to seed.  There was no roof, and vegetation had grown up the walls and over the top.  

The “floors” were thus exposed to the elements and were quite muddy.  Our youngest participant slipped and nearly fell coming out of the site.  It was difficult to hear the guide at times, and I couldn’t really pick up too much of what he was saying about the cells.

We were led back out of this site and made our way back to where we started, and down into the building featuring the restaurant.  The walls were rough, there were a number of scary looking mannequins roughly dressed to resemble some of the more notorious prisoners, as well as demonstrating some of the more heinous punishment practices.  

Must learn how to adjust for low light--these images represent a drunk man who became incensed his wife had become pregnant and hit her in the head with a flat iron.  When that didn't kill her, he stab her in the back with an ax.  That didn't do enough, so he stuffed her head in the oven.

Our guide seemed interested in connecting with the youngest members of the tour, and told “horror movie” type stories seemingly designed to elicit a scare.  The guide chortled a great deal and delighted in making jokes of the dark humor variety.    He mentioned the “spooks” still frequenting the prison, some of who were quite nasty types.  He implied he had experienced some paranormal activity of his own.   He asked for volunteers for a few of his “schticks”, including one where once his volunteers had entered a cell he slammed shut the door.  He then mumbled something about the trick not working.  He had our youngest group member place her head and hands in a pillory

and then told an absolutely horrific story about women who would be placed in the pillory in a public square and have the backs of their thighs coated with goose fat.  Vicious and hungry dogs would be then loosed upon the poor woman.  She was unlikely to survive.

Our guide mentioned that he had a ghostly girlfriend.  The story he told us was a bit confusing.  He seemed to be quite sympathetic to her, but the story was dreadful.  She was 27 years old with two small boys.  One had rickets and couldn’t hold himself upright.  Our guide mentioned that a local man had agreed to marry her (this is where the story  seemed disjointed because this “husband” disappears from the story).  Regardless, the young woman found herself riding through a field that had a well.  She inquired whether or not the well was functioning and was told it was (this too was confusing).   Some time later she was seen walking through the field with her two sons.  When others saw later that day, she had only one son.  When asked what happened to him she told contradictory stories (rather in keeping with the tale narrated by the guide).    A local woman found her tale suspicious and called a constable.  The constable ordered cake and drink for the other child and then asked him what happened to his brother.  “Mum threw him in the ditch,” he said.  (Okay, I’m thinking to myself.  What happened to the well?)  The woman ended up in the prison, sentenced to hang.  There was a long drawn out part about her ultimate demise.  She was supposed to drop a handkerchief when she was ready to die, but something thwarted that plan.  Feeling sorry for her, she was spared dissection.  

The guide indicated that he had once brought this ghost roses, and the infrared cameras had picked up her aura following him down the corridor, only to see her spirit evaporate into the mist.

Our guide made sure we made it to the dissection room, complete with a dissected female “corpse” sporting a screw in her forehead which our guide said facilitated the dissection process.  They also had a fiendish looking animated mannequin thrown in for good measure offering some odd commentary.  Our guide suggested the dissected body parts would then be put in “meat” pies ala Sweeney Todd.

One of the last exhibits concerned the “food” prisoners were served. 

Our guide said that people would save the drippings from their Sunday roasts which were then sent to Bodmin for the prisoners.  The “cook” would add some flour to the drippings, along with some suspect meat bits.  By the time the female prisoners were served (after the men, apparently), the “meal” would have congealed and  they would use the bread they were served to “stir about” what was on their plates.

On our way back to the restaurant, we passed a room called the “gift shop”.  Although we could see a few items in the store, it was dark and locked.

Our guide asked a number of the students if they had enjoyed the tour, and they tentatively responded in the affirmative. It was clearly a lukewarm response.  To say that the guide’s authority and veracity were questionable, is putting it lightly.

We finally “escaped” into the courtyard and were greeted by an afternoon shower.  By the time we got to the coach, however, a double rainbow reigned over the sky.  It was glorious.

Photo by Kathryn Mongan Rallis

We tooled along quite happily back to our hostel, but the force was not with our Jedi Coach Master and he turned too soon onto one of these famously narrow tow-paths which pass for roads in Cornwall, complete with hedgerows.  We were only miles from our destination when we encountered a Cornish Weekend Traffic Jam.   A double decker bus was having a hard time driving past opposing traffic.  It took about ten minutes to sort it, but we were then on our way again, only to be the subject of another CWTJ ourselves.  By the time eleven or more cars had piled up in the opposing direction, our fearless leader took it upon herself to try and solve the problem.  

Photo by Kathryn Mongan Rallis

Our director made her way up the road about half a mile convincing drivers along the way to back up so that we could pass.  Mind you, there was a Porsche AND a  Mercedes in the mix (this is a high rent holiday destination after all).   We finally seemed clear and then we encountered one more vehicle which couldn’t squeeze past.    We watched the poor bloke go in reverse, inch by painful inch, until finally we could pass one another. 

By the time we got to the coach parking spot across from the Constantine Surf Shop, we faced yet another unfortunate surprise—an errant vehicle parked right in the wrong spot.  Poor Mark.