 - Bodmin town lies in the centre of Cornwall and was once the
county town. It has a main line railway station and lies on the main A30 (and A38) trunk
roads.
- Local sites include the Bodmin Town Museum, Bodmin Jail
(no longer in use as a jail), the Bodmin and Wenford Steam Railway, St
Petroc's Church and
the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry museum.
- In the district are Bodmin Moor and easy access to both
the North and South coast Cornish resorts.
- The bleak and windswept granite plateau which forms Bodmin Moor has a forbidding quality, made famous in the well-known Daphne
DuMaurier novel Jamaica Inn. ‘The gray stone tavern, featured in the novel, is situated on the A30 where it crosses the moor. The highest hills in Cornwall, Brown Willy (1375ft) and Rough Tor
dominate the rugged moorland, which is mainly grass-covered and grazed by hardy cattle and sheep. From those tors on a dear day there are superb views across to both coasts of Cornwall.
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The moor is much less well known than either Exmoor or Dartmoor, and its heart seems hardly to have been warmed by life or action. But this was not always so, and in prehistoric times it was a thriving and crowded agricultural area. The many remains- field boundaries, enclosures, hut circles and stand ing stones — bear mute witness to Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers. Indeed, there are few places where a prehistoric landscape can be seen so unchanged.
A changing climate brought a colder and wetter era, leading to changing patterns of
the population leaving Bodmin Moor. Even so, its mineral wealth continued to be extracted until modern times — and remains of these industries still stand against the moorland
.
Virtually all the moorland valleys are boggy and these are good places for plants typical of wet, acid conditions, especially cotton—grass and mare’s—tail, but also sundews — well known for their habit of feeding on insects, using their sticky leaves to catch them. Bog asphodel, which is a mass of fragrant golden flowers in mid-summer, also grows in these damp places.
Dozmary Pool, not far from Jamaica Inn, is the only natural lake, but Crowdy and Siblyback reservoirs have increased the area of open water on the moor. A new reservoir at Colliford will provide a further attraction to waders and wildfowl, especially snipe, whose breeding display includes a strange drumming noise produced by extending their tail feathers in flight.
- Local towns and
villages to visit
- Bodmin
- Bolventor
- Boscastle
- Bude
- Camelford
- Launceston
- Liskeard
- Tintagel
- Widemouth
- Angling
- On the Bude estuary,
also from the rocks and beaches all along the coast. The Bude
Canal is a noted coarse water. River fishing includes stretches of
the Ottery, Inny, Camel and Tamar.
- Sailing
- Sailing on the Camel Estuary. Harbour authorities
should be consulted about off shore sailing.
- Surfing
- At Bude and Widemouth, with frequent venues for
the National Surfing championships Trebarwith Strand, about a mile
south of Tintagel is good for ordinary surfing.
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- Attractions
- MAP
Bodmin Caravan and Camping
sites
Property
For Sale in Bodmin
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