I have wanted to stay at the Bodmin Jail Hotel for ages! Me and my sister Lucy have stayed at the Oxford Prison Hotel a couple of times and loved it. We've talked about staying at the Bodmin Jail Hotel a few times, but as it's 5 hours from home, it was a bit far for a night. It did however make the perfect 3rd stop on our mystery trip.
The hotel strikes quite an imposing figure as you travel down towards it and as it was rainy on the day we arrived, I thought it made it seem as dark and imposing as it would have done when it was an actual prison.
The truth is once you pull up out front, it is a far cry from the prison built in 1779 during the reign of King George 3rd and the place where 55 people have been executed. It is every bit a luxury hotel.
The staff who work at the hotel are all very welcoming and friendly and the check in was smooth and easy. We took ourselves off for a bit of an explore and lunch in the Jolly Hangman. I'm sure those that made the long drop didn't find the hangman jolly, but it is a lovely restaurant that overlooks the courtyard of the hotel and the museum. Although we are tough midlanders, it was raining so we sat inside, but it has a great outside seating area, which I could imagine would be lovely in the sunshine. As we were on holiday and our only plan for the day was a look around the museum, lunch was pizza and wine. Slimming World wise, it was probably just a couple of syns.....
The room we stayed in was in the Naval Wing and once upon a time our room would have been three cells, now it's a double room with an ensuite bathroom, which had a slipper bath and a walk in shower. Both of them had buttons and temperature gages, it must be a Cornish hotel thing, because I've never seen it before and I love it, my own bathroom seems very lacking in gadgets now!
In the afternoon, we did a tour of the Bodmin Jail Museum, which was incredible and you can read about it here. I felt it deserved its own blog, we did the guided tour and it was worth every penny.
In the evening, we started with cocktails in the champagne bar, yet more margaritas and we ate in the Chapel Restaurant. The Chapel Restaurant offers a 3-course Market Menu and a 7-course taster menu. There's not a huge amount of choice. We both went for the 3-course menu, as there was no vegetarian option for Lucy in the tasting menu. The food we had was amazing, the crab starter was my favourite and it felt appropriate to have a bottle of the guv'nor. The restaurant itself is beautiful and in an evening they project artwork onto the ceiling so it gives it a Sistine Chapel vibe and all the staff are very friendly and welcoming.
For those of you who know me well, you'll know that I love the paranormal, "Help My House is Haunted" is one of my favourite TV shows and I love a good ghost hunt. All the way to Bodmin, I kept saying to Lucy, it'll definitely be haunted. As we walked back to our room in the naval wing, there's a bit where you can feel the temperature drop. I couldn't help, but tell Lucy what I'd read in the museum that our bit was meant to be haunted by the ghosts of annoyed sailors and small children who like to hold your hand.
Lucy told me to shut my face.
As we prepared to switch the light off and go to sleep, Lucy made me promise that I wouldn't play any spooky pranks on her, I pinky swore I wouldn't and fell asleep. What I hadn't planned on was that in the middle of the night as I turned over, Lucy would turn over at the same time and as our single beds were next to each other, we kind of bumped heads. Lucy started screaming at me, "you promised no ghostly pranks", to which I screamed back, "I just turned over". It's a good job the hotel walls are made of stone thick enough to keep criminals in, as it turns out they also stop other guests hearing sisters scream at each other.
What Lucy didn't tell me until we were on our way home was that right before I got up for a wee in the middle of the night, she saw a dark figure heading into the bathroom and still let me go in there, if I'd have known, I'd have switched all the lights on!
I loved our stay at the Bodmin Jail Hotel, even if my non-believing sister was the one to see a ghost.
Next stop, Henry 8th's Thornbury castle.
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