Notoriously haunted
Each issue we investigate the most ghostly buildings in Britain. Here we take a look at Bodmin Jail in Cornwall
Bodmin Jail is one of Cornwall’s most popular attractions where visitors can take in the sights of the refurbished 18th Century prison.
It’s a far cry from years gone by, when large crowds headed to Bodmin Jail for another, far more grisly reason – to watch as prisoners were hanged from gallows outside the prison walls.
In 1840, when brothers William and James Lightfoot were hanged for murdering a merchant during a highway robbery, 25,000 people came to cheer at the spectacle.
After 1868, when a new law meant executions were carried out in private, hangings took place inside the jail. Today, visitors can still see the execution pit in a shed in the prison yard.
Prison records show 55 inmates, eight of them women, were executed at the jail between 1802 and 1909. Add to that numerous other prisoners who died of disease rife in the filthy, overcrowded lockup, and it’s little surprise Bodmin Jail has gained a reputation as one of the most haunted places in the UK.
Bodmin Jail’s paranormal manager Kirsten Honey has had countless spooky experiences while working at the jail. One of the most spine-chilling was when she psychically picked up on a condemned prisoner’s final seconds before he was hanged in the execution pit.
Kirsten, who is a medium, says: ‘I saw and felt everything from his point of view. He was looking down and I could see his hands tied together. I felt his heartbeat slowing down, as if it had already given up on living. He was overwhelmed with despair, knowing it was his last moment on Earth. It was very poignant and emotional.’
Kirsten has had encounters with dark, negative entities, too.
‘I’ve seen people being possessed on paranormal investigations here,’ she says. ‘You notice a dark, shadowy
shape forming in the corner of a room. Then someone’s personality changes or they start feeling very unwell.
‘On one occasion I went into a trance and warned the group with me that something negative was coming. They heard footsteps on the staircase and the atmosphere turned nasty. Afterwards, I had no memory of it whatsoever.
‘I believe negative entities form from the build-up of all the terror, trauma and pain that has taken place here over the years.’
Kirsten also sees the spirits of former prisoners, including farmhand Elizabeth Osborne, hanged at the jail in 1813 for setting fire to her boss’s stacks of corn after he sacked her.
‘I’ve seen her spirit several times. Sometimes when she appears, you can smell burning. She’s so very young, wearing a ragged dress and shawl and no shoes. It’s enough to break your heart,’ says Kirsten.
Spectral warders and executioners are also seen in the prison, and the spirits of some of the 341 children imprisoned there are spotted running around.
In addition, ghostly screams are heard, objects are thrown, and people even report feeling as if they are being strangled by unseen hands.
Visitor Jason Gregg didn’t believe in the supernatural – until he attended an overnight ghost hunt at Bodmin Jail.
Jason explains: ‘Upstairs in one of the wings, my shoulder was suddenly grabbed. My friends were all at the other end of the room and there was no one anywhere near me.
‘Then an enormous rush of horrendous sadness came over me. I was reduced to tears and felt like screaming. My friends were shocked as I never cry.
‘I had to leave the room. The second I stepped outside the building, I was fine. But I felt strange for weeks, as if something had followed me home.
‘Something happened to me in that room that I can’t explain.
I’m now a firm believer in the paranormal!’
Another visitor, Hannah Stevens, is so fascinated by Bodmin Jail, she keeps going back. Hannah says: ‘I’ve had so many experiences there. On one occasion, when I was standing outside near the execution shed, I could see the spirit of a woman in black standing at a window looking down at me. She may well have been a family member of one of the executed prisoners.
‘And once I felt someone running their hands up and down my back. I’m confined to a wheelchair and I believe it was the spirit of a former jail doctor, who is known to touch people with medical issues who come to the jail. It was spooky but at least I know he was just trying to help!
‘I’ve heard rattling and chairs moving, been pushed and pulled, and also felt the spirits of children putting their hands in mine. Bodmin Jail is a genuinely haunted building.’
Around 35,000 prisoners are thought to have been held at the jail before its closure in the 1920s. It seems the tormented souls of many of those incarcerated behind the jail’s towering granite walls are still imprisoned there today.