Ghostly Tales and Smuggling Legends: Jamaica Inn Explored with Karin Beasant

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00:01:33 This week, we're going to be heading back to the wilds of Bodman Moore to revisit the Jamaica Inn, Cornwall's infamous smuggling inn that inspired Daphne de Maurier to write one of her best known novels. If you haven't listened to the first podcast episode about the inn, I will share the link in the podcast episode description notes. Make sure to take a listen to add more context. This remote 18th century inn has found fame the world over for its ghosts. What is the cause of the footsteps heard throughout the building late at night when there's no one there?

00:02:07 What about the mysterious hooded figure seen in multiple areas of the inn? Then there's the highwayman in the Tricorn Hat, who's seen by terrified guests. We'll be talking to the Jamaica Inn’s paranormal investigator Karin to get some fascinating updates on the inn's history, as well as discussing many of these spooky goings on that still happen to this day that can be linked to its past. So get comfortable, because you really are in for a treat.

00:02:44 Hello. Thank you for joining me tonight. You're very welcome, and thank you for having me back again. Well, I can't wait to talk about the inn again, to be honest, but also to kind of come back to some of that history, some of the things that we've talked about before, but obviously things that you found out since then or things that you can add to that picture. Because what's fascinating is this ever growing evolution of not only what you're putting together in terms of the history, but also the paranormal history as well.

00:03:17 So it's great that we're going to have this chance to look at some of that documentation, look at the history, and have a really good deep dive. Really. It's fascinating, especially for me as a paranormal investigator, that every year you uncover a new nugget of information or a new folklore tale. And it's never boring, but it's quite unique. It's quite rare to have a location that traces and documents the kind of history, the kind of hauntings that the inn does.

00:03:52 And the fact that you do that to the depths that you do. Like I said, is so rare, it's so unique and it's a fabulous opportunity for someone wanting to explore the paranormal. Someone who loves their history, someone who loves different aspects of history, to see where the inn fits into all of that. I mean, it's amazing what you're doing and what you've done so far to date.

00:04:13 Yeah. And for eight years, being able to document and study a world famous location as the Jamaica Inn, especially with the Daphne de Maurier connection, and with Gemma, Rachel, Lisa and now Craig joining us as the Jamaica Inn Paranormal team, we all bring something to the table which is so lovely to have that fabulous family feel about it. And what I think is going to be fantastic, hopefully, about this podcast is there's so much that the general public doesn't know or that they think they know. And hopefully this really gives them a much greater depth of understanding about the inn. Not just the Daphne de Maurier connection.

00:05:03 And the story that comes through from the book, but the actual, real history, the real story of the inn. Because it's so big, it's so vast, and it changes constantly. Not only through who owned the inn, who was looking after it, but how it grew, how it started. Different things that affected the inn at different times through the centuries. There's just so much, it's so vast a history, and it all plays into what you see happening today in terms of paranormal activity, but also how the inn has been shaped to what it is today.

00:05:39 Very much so. And with myself, that is totally obsessed and very nerdy about the place, I never get bored and I'm back down there again tomorrow. And every time you have a paranormal night or you speak to a member of staff, there's another story and collecting this vast data of reports going back to the 1950s, but also it's there for the Jamaica Inn because in the next generation, at least, they'll have that data for them to use. Absolutely. So do you want to kind of start by just taking us back to the very early foundations, the origin story of the inn, and how John Broad and his family played such an integral part, really, to the inn story?

00:06:34 Very much so. Everyone thinks that Jamaica Inn was built 1750, and I did in the past, but we now know, through some research from a local historian that the previous owner commissioned that actually, there was no Jamaica Inn to begin with. So, round about 1760, a man called John Broad, and he may have been a sea captain, which adds an intriguing twist to the tale. And with a handshake only. So, again, no written tenancy, which is unheard of by a gentleman called James Scawen from Northamptonshire.

00:07:22 He was allowed to hedge in 20 acres of land on Bodmin Moor. Now, this is over 900ft above sea level. It's drizzly a lot of the time, wet, windy, and he built a small dwelling house. Now, the dwelling house is the Jamaica Inn, as you look at it, from the outside up to the chimneys only. And I think now the museum was probably a small barn.

00:07:58 Now, fabulously. He called this Bold Venture and it became further along in time of Bulventer. But it wasn't just that. He also became a tenant of a dry clayworks, literally 2 miles away from the inn, because Cornwall had such fantastic clay to make its own superb china, pottery, porcelain. So this man had money.

00:08:32 Where did he get it from? That's the mystery. Now, we know he had two sons, James, the older, and John Jr, and I think very romantically. They married two sisters, Mary and Francis Granville. So this carried on, and also, as well, you have to remember that time period, people were more self sufficient.

00:09:00 It also became a farm, and it was a farm well into the early 20th century, so bear that in mind. This carried on for a few years, perfectly normal. And then we had round about 1778, just before the tall roads were built. And that meant a road went past the Jamaica Inn, where originally it was just a Roman track. So suddenly you had business of coaches, horse riders, and they needed a stopover place.

00:09:41 So John decided to extend the Jamaica Inn. So he put two side gables, he added a stable block in the TAC room and also the building opposite that we call the Annex. And as we know now, a small cottage with a barn that became the Smithy. Now, the Smithy is still there and the Big Bellows are still in the Jamaica Inn and they're huge, absolutely massive things. So we get to that.

00:10:19 So, 1778, it suddenly becomes Jamaica inn. So, now, where did the name come from? There are now three theories. The most common one is the Trelawne family, local landowners, who two of the members were governors of Jamaica. Another new one is that if John Broad was a sea captain, did he go from England to Jamaica to bring back rum in the sailing days?

00:10:54 But the most romantic one that I love is the folklore of the landlord having a barrel of fruit that was going off. He decided to boil it and the locals came to buy what they called the jam from the Jam Maker Inn. Which is lovely, isn't it? I totally get why that's your favorite one, because it really is just such a unique story, a unique twist on how the name could possibly have come about. I can't think of any other location.

00:11:30 With a story like that when it's fabulous, isn't it? Absolutely fabulous. But John Broad, I mean, just thinking about what you just said, what an incredible person to I mean, you can really see what kind of a grifter he was. So, business savvy to look at this opportunity to see here's this kind of footfall coming through. Now, let's take this opportunity to make some money.

00:11:55 Let's turn what I've got here in this dwelling, into something of purpose, a place that can be used for all these people now able to travel through on their route to somewhere else. I mean, just so quick, so sharp. And you have to wonder if that's partly why he came to have the money that he obviously had. But you have to wonder what kind of other deals and things that he'd done along the way to get that. Kind of money to is this the smuggling route?

00:12:23 Who knows? And again, I just think it's that hidden bit of history that we would so love to find out. But obviously it's going to be impossible now. I mean, it's a difficult job. We're talking going back a very long time.

00:12:40 It's not an easy thing to start piecing all of this together. And like I say, it's incredible that you've been able to go that far back and find out all of these different things and really chart the inn from that very humble beginning and to see how it started to grow very rapidly from just that simple dwelling with that piece of land to how quickly it started expanding and then things appearing around it. And then obviously, you are where you are now. Exactly. And it's an interesting thing for me to go there.

00:13:19 And we think one of the spirits might be abroad, and I would so love to be able to sit down and have a conversation and find out about his life, his dreams and the history that went on. Late 17 hundreds. We were at war with France. We'd lost the American colonies. There was high taxation, hence the smuggling.

00:13:46 And the Cornish were such a proud people, they called themselves the Cornish Free Traders. So this was a very independent race. It's really fascinating seeing how established this family was within the community, because they had the lease for almost 100 years. I mean, they obviously didn't all make it that far. I mean, John didn't have residence there for 100 years.

00:14:13 But to be part of that community, to have that kind of sense of, this is where I am, this is where I intend to be, this is my kind of roots. I don't know if you have that nowadays, that sense of really trying to bed down where you are and make something in the place that you're in. Again, it's just a fascinating insight into his character. I think. It's fabulous.

00:14:38 And then the one that fascinates me most is the oldest son, James Broad. But I'm also fascinated by the Georgian times, how we spoke, the language. I mean, they probably spoke Cornish as well, so we try to speak Cornish sometimes when we're there. And I found a fantastic newspaper article from 1798. So, of course, you've got these wacky potions that solve every ill going, and there was one.

00:15:13 And the main town of Cornwall was Lordston. That was the old capital. And in 1798, John Broad yeoman, because us English love our titles and our class system. So John Broad, yeoman of the Jamaica Inn, signed an affidavit in a room with three other well known gentlemen of Launston that Mr. Ching, who was a chemist from Launceton, he devised a worm tablet, and we forget everyone had worms in those days, including children.

00:15:56 And John Broad states that he suffered greatly with pains in his stomach in Bowels, and after taking one of Mr. Ching's worm lossengers, he excised worms of various lengths from a few inches to 7ft, and he had not suffered any problems since. I hope nobody's listening to this whilst eating their dinner. I apologize, because that's quite a powerful. Visual, but it just shows that was acceptable to be in a newspaper during that time.

00:16:34 Yeah. And also, again, coming back to John Broad, what does it say about him that actually, he's got to be so much part of this community that they're actually seeking out his endorsement? He's part of that crew. And I even have Mr. Ching.

00:16:51 This is amazing. Chemist. I even have one of his own minted coins with his face on the coin. I'm kind of glad that none of his potions and his remedies are still around. Can you imagine what they might have if you took them nowadays?

00:17:13 Well, it's like there's another one in 1854 from Edward Truscott, who claims that after taking a drink, that it cured his asthma and he couldn't sleep, let down for five years, and he was cured. Thank God we have regulations now. Absolutely. But again, I think it probably comes back to what you were saying as to why do these things end up in the paper? Well, I suppose if there is no regulatory body and if they're all just basically coming up with their own methods for solving something, of course they're advertising their wares and they're putting it out there.

00:17:56 And it's obviously something that's interesting for the public to need to be able to read it, because there aren't the cures that we have. There isn't the solution. And so these remedies were something almost like news itself. They were, here's what you can try. This is the latest thing that cures this.

00:18:16 It was actually newsworthy because it was relevant. Yes, very much so. Again, it's a fascinating glimpse into what would have been a brilliant piece in Time. And when you look at the Jamaica Inn now, most of the public do not realize there's such an amazing story within those walls. Absolutely.

00:18:46 And as we've kind of already discovered, it starts with, obviously, someone who was very interesting himself, obviously charismatic, a grifter, this mystery possibly, around how he got his money. I mean, there's a story there as well. It's not just the inn. There are so many layers of things that really can draw you in that make it such an incredible place, because it's special. You don't come across those kinds of things every day, do you?

00:19:17 These kinds of people and these kinds of stories. Yes, very much so. And I mean also as well, towards, you know, the end of the 17 hundreds, james's younger brother John and his wife were running a nearby in an alteringham called the King's Head. So John Broad SR. Had let James take over the Jamaica Inn.

00:19:44 So he had another son in another tenancy. So that man had done well, he built up an establishment. And again, it comes back to what you were saying. They just seem to have really embedded themselves in the community and you can really see the impact, the mark that they've left. It's just there.

00:20:05 It's so abundantly clear, isn't it, that they were so important to the community, that they were being sought out to the inn, how it started, but also how this community started growing. They started growing around these types of locations. And without him doing that in the first place, who knows? Who knows what you would have had there now if it would be something completely different? But the sad thing is, we get to 18 one and John Broad SR passed away, and unfortunately, by 18 three, James, his son, had died.

00:20:44 And that's when the first proper agreement was drawn up. And what interests me was these tenancies were classed as 99 years or two and a half lifetimes. It shows the life expectancy if they say two and a half lifetimes. Yeah, it's very revealing, isn't it, that people just didn't live that long. They expected hands to change and it to be someone different taking over, because.

00:21:15 And also the mortality rate as well. So when you go then to 1812, John Brawl Jr had died and he'd married again a second wife called Elizabeth. And interestingly, it was Elizabeth who took on the Jamaica Inn, so she was a widow. So I don't know what happened to Mary, James's wife, because they had six or seven children. Whether it was too much, did they fall out with each other?

00:21:52 It's all these hidden questions. But interestingly, by 1828, Elizabeth had left the inn. Do you remember I said that James, John Broad, the father, had 20 acres of land? Yeah. By 1828, when the new tenancy agreement was drawn up for the next tenant, it had grown to 1565 acres, which is huge.

00:22:28 It's massive. That is massive. Now, where did they get the money? And I don't think it could have been just the pub trade, because I have a really interesting I love this. A letter from 1880 from a Gordon Booker describes his stay at the Jamaica Inn, and I quote, bored venture, alas, the Jamaica Inn, where good entertainment is falsely promised to man in horse inside I never beheld.

00:23:03 He goes on to describe that the bread hadn't been delivered, they were out of cheese. The potato crop had failed. Only a mug of decent beer could be procured. Very poor. One star rating.

00:23:19 So it was a very rough and ready in then. Yeah, it served its purpose. Yes. And that was, again, where did this wealth and people forget that these weren't lowly landlords, they had money, they had a servant or two servants. They had servants working on the farm.

00:23:43 So, yeah.

00:23:47 Again, it's that grifter thing. You have to wonder you have to kind of wonder how many pies he had his fingers in and the family had in, because you just don't acquire that kind of wealth. That's a staggering amount in quite a short period of time, actually, in terms of money that they've obviously built up and land and property and so many different other assets along that way. I mean, it's huge. Very much so.

00:24:14 Then, by the 1828, one of the tenants was a Thomas Dunn. And this man and what he got up to is the next crucial thing in our story. So there is a woman called Mary Downing, and I love her because I think what a woman she must have been, because in 1834, she sued Thomas Dunn to recognize their bastard son, Thomas Dunn Downing. And I even have a copy of the baptism at the local orchingham church where Thomas is named as the father. One problem , his wife Annabella gave birth the same year.

00:25:07 So I don't think they would have had a happy life in the Jamaica Inn when she found that out. No, you can imagine glasses flying. Yes. And it might explain why the following year, in 1835 now, remember I said there were tall roads, so there would have been tall bridges where you had to pay to go past, and down the hill there's a tall called Palmer's Bridge. And poor Annabella, whether it's her fault or the gentleman in the tall house, but there was all I can describe as a fight.

00:25:48 And he was fined. Do you know how much he was fined? No, it didn't say, I'm gutted, I'm absolutely gutted. But she probably wasn't a happy woman. No.

00:26:01 It doesn't sound like an easy life for her, does it, really? Exactly. Husband with a wandering eye. And she married a poor woman. If they did, in those days, every one to two years, they had a child, then.

00:26:15 Another child. Yeah. And she's kind of left dealing with that, and, like we said, just has this husband with his philandering eyes and wandering ways. Very much so. Not a happy marriage.

00:26:33 But again, it's fabulous. So over the course of the next 20 odd years, 2030 years, you see local families either own or become tenants of this establishment. Now, Thomas Dunn did advertise and I will find the exact thing, because I can't remember it all. So he did advertise that he had done up in 1843, that he'd done the in up. And it was suitable for carriages, et cetera, and the public to come and stay in nice clean surroundings.

00:27:18 So he was looking to make the place far more respectable. To improve on that one style rating. Yes, I love it. I absolutely love it. But you can kind of understand why, because obviously it was built and kind of put together as a means of really trying to hone in and kind of capitalize on this new trade, this thoroughfare.

00:27:49 And so then once they can see it's working and they're kind of really bedded in there, it's then about making it long standing, something that's going to last, really trying to make it, like you said, respectable. Something that is more than just somewhere that people come, their horses outside, it gets a bit of water, they get a little bit of food, and then they're on their way. It's really making it something more than that, isn't it? It is indeed. And this is now we get to the stage of another folklore.

00:28:23 So there is a fabulous story. So when you're in the old part of the Jamaica Inn, and you walk up the stairs that are there presently, and you look to your left and immediate right, you'll see a square window and supposedly a candle was lit to warn if the custom men were out, which would make sense if you're smuggling goods. But recently I found of another story that a landlady would put the candle there for the all clear for the local farmer when her husband, the landlord, was away because they were having an affair.

00:29:09 A bit of gossip. So as you look into the census, which is such a handy place to find out who lived where at what time period, unfortunately, all you see is a name and you don't have that connection. But last year, I was so lucky. I was studying the 1871 census and I thought, why didn't I see this before? And I saw a name called Francis Braden, 42, retired from Her Majesty's Royal Navy.

00:29:49 And I thought, okay, what's that about? And I was so lucky to find out about him. So this is the story of Francis Braden, a man who didn't seem to marry, who was very proud and very proper. We know he was born in 1829 in Launceton, and 1871, he was a lodger at the Jamaica Inn. So that became, as we go on to the next section, something that seemed to happen quite regularly.

00:30:25 He joined probably about late teens, early 20s, for Majesty's Navy, which then was the biggest navy in the world. So he had an education, but he joined us as assistant paymaster. So what is a paymaster? So he was commissioned, the role was as an accountant officer for cash to the Accountant General of the Navy. So by 1864, he was now wearing a uniform with an added white strip of distinction cloth between the gold rings on his arms.

00:31:06 So a local man made good. It was an important role and he traveled all over the world in his career, so every time they assigned him, they announced it in the newspapers so you could see all these wonderful ships that he sailed on. So one of the ships was the Amethyst, and there is an actual stamp commemorating that ship, which is fabulous. It looks like a brigade. He also sailed on many, including the Leopard and the Black Prince.

00:31:45 What was the best thing was in 1858, he was fined for being drunk and disorderly and he was so angry that he wrote a letter to the Farmouth Gazette to claim his innocence and repair his reputation. And I'll just quote some from it. Sir, I have to request you will insert the following in your widely circulated paper a paragraph having appeared in the West Britain relative to myself, wherein it stated that on the 11th I was charged with being drunk at midnight in the borough of Penrin and fined five shillings in costs. I have to therefore to request you be pleased to find space in the columns of your paper for the few remarks I feel in duty bound to bring before your notice. In the first instance, I would call your attention to the peculiar manner in which the report is inserted in the West Britain, as it would make it appear that the constable had made the first charge.

00:32:57 Such was not the case, as the first summons was taken out by me against the policeman White for an assault. And it was not until the 27th that I was summoned to answer to the charge of being drunk. A period of 16 days, having elapsed from the time the offense was adhered to, have been committed. Now, to me, this shows a man of honor, intellect and proud of his position in the Royal Navy, especially his reputation. So I lose him for a little while, but I find out in 1904, he was lodging in Launceton in the lodging house, and as he walked out one day, he tripped and broke a bone in his hip, though he sadly passed away the following year in 1905.

00:33:54 So my next quest is to find his rest in place in Launceton and to lay a wreath to commemorate this wonderful lodger of the Jamaica Inn. What a nice conclusion that would be. To kind of be able to do that, to have that kind of conclusion to his story, if you will. Because, like you say, he seems a very proud and special character who really did appreciate what he was doing, value what he was doing and care about what he was doing. Enough to be articulate, to challenge something, to challenge the law, to write his name, to put things to right, which most people would not do.

00:34:37 They wouldn't they wouldn't be able to they would not be able to do something like that. So it says a lot again about his character again. And it's also from a name you have put me on bones, as I call it. So now you have this person. So you never know, one day there may even be an old photograph somewhere of him.

00:35:00 Imagine obtaining that. And this is the beauty of this hidden world of the Jamaica Inn, finding out about these people that pass through their doors. Yeah, and it's such an. Incredible history. Because it is going from one person to another, and each has their own part of the story to tell.

00:35:24 They're each individuals. Like you said, they're human beings and they're bringing something to the inn, but it's also a location that's kind of seen so much change because of influences and things taking place around them. And when you were talking about someone being in a position where they're having to defend their honor because of being found drunk, possibly see how some laid very much heavily into the inns history because of the temperance movement. And it's something that I think people are aware of, but maybe don't really understand the magnitude of that area of history. Because it wasn't just churches coming together, religious groups coming together to form this movement, try and really prevent people from drinking to scale back all these problems that they saw coming from working class people drinking too much and boardy behavior.

00:36:26 Children drinking wasn't just about that. It was about Parliament stepping in. It was about pamphlets being written. It was about all these different groups of people with very serious concerns at this particular moment of time, really openly discussing the demon of drink and the impact that it had on people's behavior and morality was the thing really at. The heart of it.

00:36:52 All these concerns and questions about what was happening. And there's one image that I always think of that really kind of highlights just how much this was in kind of the popular discussion and in people's minds. And that was the piece of artwork that really looked at the problems around Gin. And so you have this piece called Gin Lane created by William Hogarth. And if anybody looks up, you can see exactly what it was that they were saying about drink and the influence that drink had and why it should be something that should be curbed, that it should be something that people should abstain from.

00:37:36 Because when you look at this image, you've got drunken mothers literally asleep, passed out with their bare breasts hanging out, and their babies are literally tumbling out of their arms to the floor. You've got other mothers who are pouring drink into the mouths of their babies. You've got emaciated soldiers with their cups falling out of their hands because they're so drunk. You've got images of crumbling buildings that are falling down because nobody's really doing any work and being productive. You've got a riot and a brawl happening in one corner of the picture.

00:38:10 You've got someone hanging. From a noose. And then you've got bodies being put into coffins suggesting that crime is up. And again, this was something that really did get discussed everywhere. This was the same time when Parliament were discussing the rise in crime and suggesting it was down to drink.

00:38:32 And so you had changes in law to really crack down on punishment because of this fear that crime was on the rise because of too much drinking involved amongst the working classes. You had questions around women in their place in these establishments and whether they were being led astray or if they had loose morals. I mean, it was so much embedded in what was happening at that time. It's fascinating.

00:39:02 To me. The temperance movement is absolutely huge and it had such an effect around the country and it had an effect on the Jamaica Inn. Yeah. For it to kind of make its way down to Cornwall and for the in itself to become a temperance inn. This was somewhere where alcohol would not be consumed, it would not be sold.

00:39:28 Exactly. And many might not realize that by 1880, it had become a temperance house and they didn't get their license back to 1950 after four attempts. Yeah. Post the Second World War, that's a sizable amount of time where actually, you couldn't consume alcohol. You were teetotal, you could not get it in that spot.

00:39:57 And again, the local farmers, they were the biggest objectors every time the Jamaica Inn tried to gain its license back. And this takes us on then to beginning of the 20th century. Yeah. I mean, it's so fascinating to kind of see how all of those things really have just helped steer it along the way until we're kind of closer to where we are today to see some of the changes and influence that have been had on the in itself. It's fascinating.

00:40:30 Very much so. This little in in this barren wilderness of Bodmin Moor would have remained unknown if it wasn't for a visit in 1930 by a young lady who we all know, Daphne de Maurier. Now, what happened on 1930 and 1931 changed the inn's fortune, so most people will have heard of the story. She was staying there in 1930 with her friend, presumably in room four, though we're not 100% sure, and she went to visit an old lady and they had horses from the Jamaica Inn because, again, people don't realize they also did auctions of cattle. It was a working farm and horses were there all the way through because of the smithing.

00:41:34 So on the way back, the rain came in, they got lost, they sheltered in a derelict building, and then her friend said, Let the horses lead the way and I love the account. And as she's coming up the hill towards the Jamaica Inn, the landlord stood outside with a lantern in the darkness, waiting for them. And they spent a few days there recovering, but it was the following year, in November 1930, when she came to stay. And this is a story that most people don't know. The local vicar from Alteringham, who I only found out last year, was his name was a Charles Tricklet.

00:42:21 He came to, had afternoon tea with her, no alcohol, and he regaled her with stories of wreckers and smugglers around the Cornish coast. And then, few years later, what happened? Jamaica in book. It then became a film in 1939 with Charles Lawnton, one of our famous English actors, and the new Maureen O'Hara, who only recently died a couple of years ago. And that put the Jamaica Inn on the map.

00:42:58 Whereas years after, people would visit the Jamaica Inn because of that connection, including royalty, film stars, celebrities. But I'll tell you a bit more of that in a minute.

00:43:17 I love the kind of the little dropping of things, but it's fascinating to know that the significance at that moment really does have in making this location so well known, the power that one book had to really put it in our psyche. So much so that we know the name. We know the name all over the world. Exactly. And I have a fabulous quote from Daphne from 1936.

00:43:49 Jamaica Inn stands today, hospitable and kindly a temperance house on the 20 miles road between Bodmin and Launston in the following story of adventure. I have pictured it as it might have been over 120 years ago. And although exist in place, names figure in the pages. The characters and events described are entirely imaginary. Just so rich, isn't it?

00:44:22 I mean, it just brings the whole place alive when you hear something like that. It's just fascinating. It's just so incredible. And if you've never read the book, please read the book, because it's so different to the film in the TV that happened after. The book is fantastic.

00:44:43 It is.

00:44:46 It's something that I think for those who've only read the book, that's what they also think the in is. And I think that's something we'll be able to talk about a little bit later. But it's the beginnings, isn't it? It kind of sets the scene. It gives you that sense of place, the sense of atmosphere, and it touches on some of these stories that had really influenced her, the tales from within the local area, in the local community.

00:45:08 And you can see that coming through in the book, which is incredible, to see it on the page and to see it come to life. Very much so. And of course, when the film came out in 1939, the clouds of war were coming over. And unfortunately, World War II started and it changed everything for so many people. And again, this is something that had such a significant impact on the inn.

00:45:41 And we can focus on the history from centuries ago, but actually that more recent history is just as revealing in terms of what the inn has to say also. So it'll be fascinating to kind of hear some of the things that you found out about that part of history and the impact on the inn. So we know that the landlord or manager, because it wasn't owned by him, was a Claude Finneymore. And we know that the Jamaica Inn became the local post office, so the farmers would go there to pay their rent. Now, what interests me is local oral history, and if you have the chance, anyone who's looking into the past, please interview people, the older generation, before they go, because once they've passed on, that history is lost forever.

00:46:40 And it's happened to me a few years ago. There was a lovely old local at the Jamaica Inn. One day I was walking past and he said, you don't know what went on here during the Second World War or the secret meetings. And I said, oh, what do you mean? And I thought, oh, I'll come back and I could kick myself, because I didn't.

00:47:03 And the man passed away and we've lost some valuable information. So what intrigues me is when the Americans joined the Second World War, many people not realized, just before D Day, there were 4 million US troops in the UK. Absolutely huge population. There were 8000 camped around. Bodmin and Bodmin Moor alone.

00:47:36 And I read a wonderful account of a gentleman who described his voyage on the Queen Mary coming over because it was used as a troop ship, came to Bristol and took a train down to their camp in Bodmin. Now, what most don't realize again is, in Cornwall, there were four prisoner of war camps for Italians and Germans alone, just in Cornwall. And I was reading through and then on the 22 June 1944, claude Finneymore, the landlord, claimed that General Patton stayed for three nights at the Jamaica Inn and he brought his own eggs so he could have eggs and ham for breakfast. And I thought, why would a general stay at the Jamaica Inn? Well, of course it's isolated, it's out the way.

00:48:38 So I looked at his diary and Patton's diaries are available online to read, but his writing is atrocious it's like a doctor's. But there's one comment on the 23 June 1944 where he describes if it was the inn, because it was called at the time, the Jamaica Inn Hotel, that he admired, a woman's legs sat at the bar. And I quote, she had the longest legs I had ever seen.

00:49:19 And on the 25 June 1944, he then drove to Extra to pick up Eisenhower. And I have another account that on a hill overlooking the Jamaica Inn, patton was famous for doing his speeches, et cetera, and Eisenhower was there. But we also have an account of George VI, who came to review the practice of the dDAY'S landing and having lunch in a field next to the Jamaica Inn. So is it true that secret meetings went on because a local historian called Jim Edward claims that our own General Montgomery visited Pattern at the Jamaica Inn. Imagine that if that was true, that meeting.

00:50:17 I mean, it makes complete sense, doesn't it? Because what you've got, again, like you said earlier, is a location that's isolated, it's out of the way, it's a perfect place for that kind of meeting to take place. And there's an airport nearby called Davisow, around about 7 miles as the crow flies. And they had the big US bombers going off from there as well. But obviously, Cornwall being Cornwall, you had a lot of fog, mist and you had plane crashes.

00:50:49 A German bomber actually crashed in to Brown Willie, which is the hill next to the Jamaican, killing everyone. And you weren't kidding when you said it's a location that seen royalty people of note, because just think about all those different people that you've just mentioned.

00:51:09 Very much so. You could basically be sitting in a spot where a king has been close by to, and where a secret meeting, war meeting, has been taking place whilst you're having your pint and your sandwich. It's just staggering. Exactly.

00:51:29 I'll go back to the stories from the 1950s, but we'll just go on. So after the war, it was sold again, they got their license back and it went through various owners. But one of the other famous owners was Alastair McLean, the famous author who bought it in 1964, and he paid 27 and a half thousand pounds. That's a lot of money. You dread to think what that would be now.

00:52:03 Very much so. Then it goes through other owners. I mean, the Watts were there for a long time and then eight years ago, a businessman called, who obviously I know, Alan Jackson, he had literally a 15 minutes look and bought it on the spot for £2 million. And he recently sold it in 2022 for over 8 million to the wonderful coaching group run by the lovely Kevin Charity, who you've interviewed yourself. Yeah, he really cares about his ins and you can tell, and it's great that the Jamaica Inn is now part of that group because it's such an iconic location.

00:52:46 And to know that someone's going to continue to care for it and to help do the things to it that should happen, to keep a building the way that it should be kept for future generations, really. Exactly. And as we speak at the moment, the two museums, the smuggling museum, the Daphne de Maurier Museum, are being renovated, hopefully finished by the 27 February 2023. And a lot of work has gone into it by a wonderful archivist called Jane, who is looking at the real smuggling, the real stories of the smugglers of Cornwalls as the man called the King of Prussia. And I'm not going to give any more away, because what I've seen so far is absolutely fabulous.

00:53:35 But it shows the care that Kevin Charity has for his inns and having the real history shine through from these wonderful hotels that he looks after.

00:53:58 We are about to celebrate hitting our 100th episode of Haunted History Chronicles on the last Friday of April 2023 to say thank you for the months of May, June and July. There are going to be daily paranormal podcasts available to enjoy on all tiers over on Patreon , as well as the usual additional items available over there. Signing up now will gain you access to these, as well as all previous archived content. For as little as £1, you could be getting hundreds of podcasts to enjoy and more and know that you're contributing and helping the podcast to put out another 100 episodes. You can find the link in the.

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00:55:02 Kind of touched upon their smuggling and the significance and the things that are taking place to really kind of highlight some of that as part of this renovation. But like some of the things that we've spoken about, smuggling really, again, does play such a significant part in the inns history and the local area's history. It was big business. I mean, smuggling was something that brought in huge amounts of different things. I mean, the estimates for what it brought into the country from abroad, half of the UK's brandy, a quarter of the UK's tea, that's massive.

00:55:46 I mean, I wish we could kind. Of the English has always done this as well. I mean, when I had a pub 30 years ago, I used to have things come through my door. And when we used to go on holidays years ago, we always used to have extra tobacco or an extra drink in our luggage coming back. But when you see supermarkets at the moment struggling to get things in the shops and announcements, all the times of problems with veg and them having to limit how much you can have of this or that I mean, back then you had this booming business, this underground and yet known business of bringing things in illicitly onto the Cornish coast.

00:56:30 Yeah, so the farmers rented out their mules to go down to the beach to bring up the goods, and everywhere it stopped. And you have to remember, for the local Cornish people, this was an essential way of life as well, and it was a way to make a little bit of money. Even the custom men were paid off, the judges were paid off. They were all involved. I mean, really quite significant people as well.

00:57:03 Wasn't there someone in the Admiralty who was part of it all? I mean, just really key people along the whole kind of chain, all walks of life, part of the community involved. It wasn't the rough and ready people that you might expect. It was literally people on every single socioeconomic level involved in this. Of course, just us in the coming back with extra cigarettes that people would sell on 100 of them to their friends and things like that.

00:57:41 There's always been that enterprise. But as soon as the Prime Minister appeal changed the law, it wasn't economic to do that. Excessive smuggling of the brandy because they could buy it for the same price in the shops. Yeah. And that kind of really hits us to why it was needed in the first place, that it was such big business, because taxation, like you briefly mentioned, was so high.

00:58:10 And until that was changed, the demand for it, the need for it, really was there, because here was a way of bringing it in to be able to sell and it'd be far cheaper in comparison. Very much so, yeah. So what were some of the odd, maybe more unusual things that they smuggled in? Was there anything really kind of like you might not expect? So, one thing in the old museum, you would see watches put in Bibles where the pages were cut out, budgies in corsets, there's a huge tortoise that was used for over 20 odd years, being smuggled in and out with goods inside it.

00:59:00 And the person got away with it all that time. Oh, my God. What a unique way of carrying cargo.

00:59:13 Huge tortoise, but also the budgies inside. A corset, like hello heels, you know, hollow heels. And you watch shows nowadays where they smuggle thing in, but obviously with X ray things like that, you can't get away with it like they did in the old days. No, they didn't have people at customs there ready to stop things. I'm sure they didn't pat down a pregnant woman in those days, whether she was pregnant or not.

00:59:48 No dogs to sniff your goods and seems to put your packages through. But the organization for this, I mean, we're laughing the organization of this is staggering. This was a very well oiled machine, if you like, to make this happen for carried out and, like we said, to involve people at every level of the community, so that it kind of was this thriving, booming business. Exactly. The Jamaica Inn is built on solid granite.

01:00:21 I mean, there was a water tank to pump the water up from lower down the hill and there were a couple of wells. But where did they hide it to? There must have been strategic stopping off places as they traveled up from Cornwall, Devon, onto London and other parts of the country. Yeah, absolutely. But it also shows how the smugglers invented ghost stories as well, to keep people away.

01:00:51 There's a famous case in the east coast of a ghost drummer, but that was made up by the smugglers. And it leads me on to a lovely another folklore story of a man on his deathbed, where the local vicar came to give the rights, et cetera. And the man confessed that many, many years ago he met the vicar on the coastal path and as it came to a fork, the vicar wanted to go via the down through the coast, along the beach and back up. And the man said, no, go that way. And he said to him, I'm so glad you chose that way, because we were having a delivery and if you had gone to the beach, I would have had to slip your throat.

01:01:38 So whether it's true or not, who knows? But it's such a wonderful story of an old smuggler asking forgiveness. But it also highlights, as well as the kind of the need for the ghost stories, it kind of highlights this darker element to it, the risk of exposure, of being found out, of having. To keep it secret. And it's important not to overlook that, that this was very clandestine.

01:02:04 It had to be. And just the nature of how it got from the ships themselves, just thinking up to the inn, the fact that you've got that lovely window that was used to light when it was all clear and when it was safe for people, this was secretive, it had to be. And you can see that in every part of what happened and how they did it, because otherwise the risk was being caught. I mean, during the height of the smuggling, as we know, when we've spoken to Richard Felix before, you could be hung for over 200 offenses, and when the 1752 Murder Act came in, they denied you a Christian burial. So if you were hung for murder, your body would be given over and dissected and your skin could be used to bind a book, as it happened, to a poor lad in Bristol called John Horwood, who was only 18.

01:03:12 So the risk was massive. And like you said, it then feeds these stories of ghosts to keep people away, to make them frightened, to kind of poke their noses into something. And you have these stories of dangers, of possibly meeting your end on if you go one way, having your throat slid. These stories become part of the community, that kind of day to day culture, and in their minds, to stop them looking, to stop asking those difficult questions and to turn that blind eye when it's needed, so this trade can continue and the people involved don't end up on the end of a niece. Very much so.

01:03:58 It leads us on now to the oddities of the Jamaica Inn. It has oddities no.

01:04:09 Before you had the Smugglers Museum, there was a museum there called Potter's Museum of Curiosity, and that was put in there in 1980 and it was founded by a Victorian taxidermist called Water Potter in 1861 in Bramburg in West Sussex. So what he would do, which is really bizarre, he would stuff kittens and birds and then put it like an afternoon tea and things like that. So it is very bizarre. And if you look online, you can see the pictures. And I remember chatting to some people, and people of my age remarking that it traumatized them to see all this, all these stuffed animals in these weird, weird attractions there.

01:05:09 Interestingly. When it was sold in 2003, the collection was made £500,000 and some of the famous celebrities that bought it was comedian Harry Hill, photographer David Bailey and artist Peter Blake. And I must admit, I'm glad it's not there now, because I don't think you and I would like it. Somehow. You got to wonder where they put them in their house.

01:05:45 Downstairs toilet? Is it hidden away in some way? See a cat with a hat on and things like that? Yeah, very bizarre. But there are some other amazing things as well.

01:05:57 That the first ever tarmac Road in Britain was outside the Jamaica Inn. And those that have been to the inn, to the restaurant, which is a modern 1980s extension, may have noticed these wonderful thick oak beams. Now, they came from Devonport dockyard in Plymouth, and Devonport Dockyard is one of our famous naval bases. Goes back to the 17 hundreds, as far as I'm aware. So you have these modern extensions with old timbers, so it still gives you that feel of history.

01:06:40 And again, another sea foreign connection. And things like the cobbles, they came up from Plymouth in the 1950s. It would have been just dirt with gravel there before. But one of the things I love, and I've told you the story many times, is Percy the parrot who faked his death. So going to laugh just thinking of it.

01:07:05 Yeah, I've already got a smile on my face. There was a parrot there for about 60 years. It was female, but they called it Percy and it was known for its atrocious language to people. Well, come, by the late 1990s, it was pulling out its feathers, it was looked quite bedraggled and unfortunately, it had died. And there was a lovely burial plot in the back garden of the Jamaica Inn with a plaque, which was fabulous.

01:07:36 Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. When Alan Jackson extended the restaurant, they dug up Percy's remains, opened the box, no Percy, no bones, no feathers. So I thought, let's try and find what happened to him. So I put a plea in the local paper, on social media, nothing. Few months later, I tried again and I spoke to a local animal sanctuary who said they went to have a look at him, I think, in the late 1990s, and they didn't want to give him to the sanctuary.

01:08:18 But then I was contacted by a woman who admitted that he faked his death and went to a family where he lived for another few years. So Percy the parrot, was he a spy? Who knows? Who does know? Yeah.

01:08:40 It's brilliant. Percy, his own autobiography or someone else to write his biography for him, because who has a fake death? And all of those kinds of things weaved into their stories. Only Percy. Only Percy.

01:08:56 But also, as well, I spoke to a fantastic lady, and I have some of her family photographs of the Jamaica Inn, because in the 50s, her father was the manager there, Mr. Gross, and he met her mother because his first wife had unfortunately had died, who was a barmaid, and they got together and unfortunately her mum got pregnant, so he had to marry her as they did in those days. And she was born there in 1955. But the story she tells me, the pet pig used to walk around the bar. A pet pig.

01:09:40 Her bedroom was haunted, room five. And when she was about two or three, to get her to sleep, they had to put the pet osation in the room with her. And her mother used to say that during the day, the Jamaica Inn was lovely, but as night came, it changed and she hated being alone in the place. And she would describe how the guests would come down in the morning and say, who's been into my room? Because my clothes were on the floor and I've woken up and they've been folded neatly at the end of the bed.

01:10:20 What happened to that ghost? Because it definitely isn't there anymore. We all need that ghost. And then when she was about three, the Danish Royal family came to visit, because, again, you had Diana Dors, you had all these people, and also students of Rada used to work there in the summer. And I wonder if there are any famous celebrities who could tell tales of the Jamaica Inn.

01:10:50 Who knows? So this three year old had a doll and one of the Danish princesses grabbed her doll and she said that she just walked up to her and shoved her hard on her backside, much to the horror of her father. But lucky enough, the parents, the Princess and Prince the Prince and Princess of the Danish Royal family, thought it was hilarious. A commoner shoving one of their princesses on their backside.

01:11:23 Her father I've got a photo. Her father still kept horses in the staple block. Oh, wow. So it's that oral history. And I'm so glad that I had the chance to talk to her.

01:11:42 And also a lovely lady who, at 17, lived there for ten years in 1959 and worked behind the bar. And she told us about the layout, how different it was, how the stairs weren't they are now. They were in the, you know, the main bar, as we call it, which was the lounge. And then a few weeks ago, um, Robert, our wonderful manager down at the inn, he he deals with all the maintenance, et cetera. He gave me plans from 1970, which showed the layout of the original in bedrooms where they were and the proposed plans, which they did do by 1972.

01:12:32 So the stable block in the museum, they didn't have any floors used to see right up to the rafters, where they put extra bedrooms, where they changed things around because they didn't have, as we have now, ensuite, where the original staircase was, the additional fireplace that's been lost to history and time. So now you have this fabulous insight to the layout of this wonderful Jamaica Inn, and you think, well, hang on, that door is there. Now, that's like a three foot wall that wasn't there before 1972. So the tale of this man in the cape, he couldn't have gone through a brick wall, so he must have gone this way. So, again, is gathering that data, it's so, so important.

01:13:23 I was just going to say, this is why you're really doing what you're doing, because by learning these things, by discovering these nuggets of history and these documents and these people and their part that they've played, you can start to piece it to what you're seeing. And this is where oral history is so important, because some of these things are known at local level. And if you're not finding out what the community knows, if you're not kind of gathering that data from guests and people who come through the doors and all of the different groups that come through, all of that body of information really is significant in trying to build up the picture of what happens at the Inn. Exactly. And the interesting thing for me, as an investigator is why some ghosts seem to disappear and others take their place.

01:14:14 So the ghost or spirit from the 1950s who tidied everything up, where have they gone? And why in the last six years now do we have a US airman who's been seen three times at the Jamaica Inn, once by a 16 year old girl as solid as anything, walked past her, but made no sound on the flagstone floor. So it leads me on now to the hauntings. Of course, we've got to talk about the hauntings. Oh, God, we got to talk about the hauntings.

01:14:52 I mean, the history, the people, all of these things is so fascinating. But again, you have a location that really does have such broad evidence of different types of phenomena. And we're talking reports going back decades of reported activity at the inn, which is fascinating, again, to kind of build up that body of evidence and accounts, what people have observed, so that you can start to piece together connections or possible patterns or see how some things have faded away. And other things, like the airmen, like you were mentioning, how those things come to the fore. I mean, it's fascinating the level of information that you have, really, because of the work that you're putting in to kind of bring all of that together.

01:15:41 Exactly. And for us, we feel we have such. A moral responsibility. So when we do our public paranormal nights, we have something called smugglers Board. So any experiences, no matter how silly someone feels, we ask during the break.

01:16:03 They write it down, where it was, what happened, because all that data is collected and you see patterns emerge. But we also don't give out everything that haunts the in because we want to see if we can get genuine reports and not things that may have been influenced by others. So one of the most interesting things is the hooded figure. It's not a monks. I will always want to make that quite clear.

01:16:36 So four years ago, in room four, a medium picked up in the alcove there of a hooded figure of a man. And we thought, okay, it didn't take that much notice, but I made a note of it. Then another medium said it the following year. We kept it completely to ourselves. Then, the night manager at the time, was in the cellar behind the main bar.

01:17:06 He was bottling up, so he was lead on his knees and a bottle came out in front of him and landed perfectly in front of him. And as he looked to the left, he said what he described was Haunted, a man with a hood with a long white beard and I think like a satchel going across. Now, that really shocked him. So we wrote it down, we kept it relatively quiet, but then in the last eight months, it's ramped up. So we had a report of one of the young servers in the lower restaurant, again, a modern extension, the same description.

01:17:51 She came out from the kitchen, he was just stood solid as anything by the fireplace, and she thought someone was dressed up, went back, came back out, you were still there. She went to get someone to witness it. He had gone. Then in room 34, which is one of the modern extensions from four or five years ago, a lady woke up to see a man with a hood and a white beard leaning over, looking intently at her husband's face, which made her jump a little bit. Yeah.

01:18:28 But what most people don't realize is Corma was famous for the pilgrim trail from Ireland. They would go by boat from Cornwall to Spain onto Jerusalem. And about 5 miles down from the Jamaica Inn is a village called Temple, and it was founded by the Knights Templar. What were they famous for? For pilgrims having somewhere safe to stay.

01:18:55 So the track outside the Jamaica Inn was originally a Roman track. Is that a pilgrim? I don't know, I haven't seen him. But we're keeping all the reports anymore that come in, so that's an interesting one. But we do know the first ever recorded report was in 1911 of a man sat outside on the wall of the Jamaica Inn dressed in rather old fashioned clothing.

01:19:28 And when locals tried to speak to him, he just disappeared. So I used to think, well, we've had no other reports. That must be a one off. Till I spoke to a lady who, in 1977, of a little girl was sat in the back of her parents car, parked outside the Jamaican on the road, and she said, Mummy, Daddy, who's that strange man on the wall? That everyone's ignoring him.

01:19:54 He looks weird. Makes you think, doesn't it? It does, because it's one of those that when you hear it and then you know of that earlier account, the similarities are there, really, aren't they? But to not have it happen as often makes when something like that does happen almost more credible, if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean?

01:20:20 It makes it stand out. This is something that someone's not speaking about. It's not being put out there all of the time, but yet it's cropping up every so often. And again, you have to ask, well, why? Why is it something that happens then and then there's this large gap before maybe something else is known.

01:20:39 Why is it that some things come through more frequently? Why is that becoming more present at the moment? It just raises so many questions within the paranormal, I think, as to how and why that happens. Yeah. So we also have to be careful that we don't I'm not saying fake, but to put something out there that is not factually correct, it's like Hannah, room five didn't exist 14 years ago.

01:21:08 It's become its own folklore. What we do know is a little girl that I've seen first ever apparition, if you want to call it, in a Victorian dress. So a dark gray dress with a white oversmark, beautiful blonde curly hair. I have had tons of reports of the same description and the most common name. And we know Elizabeth that were born there.

01:21:37 Is Elizabeth. Is that her name? I can't say hand on heart, but do you remember we talked about Thomas Dunn and Mary Downing? Well, in room three for many years, there's been reports of a sobbing woman, a crying baby, but also in room seven, a crying baby, because the layout was different as well. Now, many mediums people picked up and we wonder, is this Mary Downing?

01:22:08 Did she actually work there? Was it a love affair? Wasn't it? We don't know, but again, we say it could be, but we cannot prove it. And is the little boy seen Tommy or Thomas?

01:22:28 Because that's been picked up lots of times. You seem to get responses by using those names, but again, we're so careful not to put things as fact that we cannot prove. So we know in the 1950s of a man in the Green Cape walking through the Jamaica Inn when it was close, much to the amazement of the staff who've seen him walk and go past her. And we know in the 1980s, when Peter Underwood, one of the famous investigators. The Ghost Club came.

01:23:07 And then obviously Most Haunted in 2004. So you then have a plethora of investigators public. But also there is a huge visitors book and I've been going through the old one from 2010 and cataloging all the reports from guests. It's surprising how some things come up again and again, like a television turning itself on at three in the morning in room eight. Now, those televisions have been updated and it's not isolated.

01:23:47 And in room nine, and that happened January 22 as well. So we know a Victorian woman that's been seen in the shop in room 27 and now in the new room 23. But does that mean that Ghost Spirits see the Jamaica Inn in real time? Because there's one figure, we don't know if it's Jack or James or whoever, and in 2018, the main bar of really Lovely Investigator I was with, and I'm gutted I didn't see it, was sat in the main bar and there's a table with a Beasantch next to the fire and we call it Jack's Seat. And she looked to her right and sat in the chair was a man with black hair, curly black beard, Britches trousers, white frilly shirt.

01:24:49 But she said he was sat in a modern chair, he had his elbow on the table and he had the hand against his side of his cheek. And she said it was the expression half amusement, half, what on earth are you doing? Now, that description has been described to me in 2016 outside room five and in 2018 by A Medium with Haunted Britain Investigates. So it shows the importance of collecting this data. Absolutely.

01:25:26 And then there was a lady who was moving down to Cornwall in 2018 again, so it was a December midweek night and it was her and another couple was 09:15. She wasn't drinking alcohol, she was just on orange juice. And she saw this girl about 15 come towards her and she thought, oh, my God, doesn't she look lovely dressed up? She had a mop cap, a Victorian mauve colored dress and a dirty apron, and she carried a tray. So this lady picked her empty glass up, handed it to her.

01:26:03 As she handed the glass, the young girl just disappeared in front of her and she's still holding out the glass. And she looks to her husband, who was looking a different way, and said, I think I've just seen a ghost.

01:26:20 So again, collecting all these stories, the staff, we have a sort of we call it discord, where any paranormal reports, they put it on there so I can collect and keep an account of it. The shop the young girls used to get their ponytail pulled and books used to fly off the shelves, seems to have stopped now. The corridor outside the shop, that used to be the walkway to Boventor Church that was built in 1847, the ladies toilets, the little boys been seen by children, the gents toilets. A man was walking towards it, heard an almighty row going on. So with tepidation, he opened up the door.

01:27:08 No one in there. You have so many reports, everyone thinks room three, four, five and six are the haunted ones. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but in the old block seven, 8, 9, 10, 11,12 all. Have paranormal reports that importance of really looking at all the evidence that comes in in a variety of different forms. Whether it's someone who's made a comment in a guest book, whether it's someone from the community who just happens to recount one day while sitting at the bar a story that they remember from when they were little.

01:27:46 All of these things really do start coming together and building up a much bigger picture. That if you were just doing it in isolation, just you and your team, and only bringing together that information, compare that small amount with the plethora that you get from other teams, other investigators, guest books, visitors, staff, all of these different people. And suddenly your body of work that you're doing is going to sit alongside, well, these reports, these documents from guest books, and you can start building something much bigger. And that then prompts questions. It helps you to make connections, see patterns, all of these things that we've spoken about.

01:28:33 But without that, you wouldn't be able to do that in quite the same way. You wouldn't have enough, you wouldn't have the big picture, if that makes sense. And I think that's what's so important about what you're doing, because you're really thinking big picture as opposed to, what am I doing? What's my team doing? It's what's going on all around us all the time that we can also tap into.

01:28:57 For us, it's a data collection, it's a study and it's for anyone to have. Now, you don't know about our modern ghost? No, I don't. So last year, a lady that she's come about 1112 times on our public nights, lovely lady she was, sat in the main museum and she thought a man with a short hair, skin head type of thing, jumper and jeans had walked past. And she realized that A, he would have had to walk into the cabinet and B, I was at the other end of the guest, so no one alive had walked down.

01:29:41 So she described that to me. Few months later, we had another report. What they didn't know was in 1980, in the Upper restaurant, a member of staff saw a man in modern dress with an orange jumper, dark trousers, standing by the door and she thought, well, hang on, we've locked up, went down to say, Excuse me, can I help you? No one there. So if I didn't know about the old report, I didn't know that there might be a correlation and that's the importance.

01:30:19 So we're just hanging on now to see if we have any more. Yeah, because you're looking? Do you get more of the same type of thing or is it just that one encounter? Can you start making those connections? And again, that's where collating and gathering and really thinking of it as a paranormal study is different.

01:30:42 You're not just doing it as a one off, you're really going into in depth dives in every aspect and just think where you'll be this time next year, what other things you will have uncovered, what other things you may have found in terms of the history, but also reports experiences. It's constantly growing and shifting and that's the exciting part because when you gather more and more information, piecing things together. I've been in room five and had the footsteps around the bed myself and my friend Tracy many years ago, which was quite amusing because she's a total skeptic and she was nudging me. She said, you are not going to sleep because the footsteps are coming around to my side. You couldn't see anyone.

01:31:33 But I've slept in that room lots of times and have nothing. I think it's just the right time, the right place. And is the tricorn man who walks through the wardRoberte a room five? Is it the same shadow figure that's seen standing outside the bathroom staring at the occupants in bed in room six and the same one that's been seen twice outside room five? Who knows?

01:32:01 But again, you wouldn't be able to ask those types of questions if you didn't have the information that you have to be able to actually formulate a question. It's again, it's that trying to understand what you have and trying to make sense of what you're having and then. Continuing to look and continuing to ask. And continuing to try and set things up. Investigations, activities, different experiences, to try and answer some of the questions that you've got yourself.

01:32:35 It's the unusual thing. Just a few weeks ago, myself and Craig, we were upstairs in the haunted rooms and we were just picking up kit because we were about to do the last vigil of everyone down in the main bar. So the occupants of the famous Halter Rooms were down there already. And we're walking down the corridor right between us, a voice just said, I. And we both stopped and I said, did you?

01:33:03 And he said, yeah. What did you hear? And I said, I hear oi. He said, So did I. But there was no one.

01:33:10 There was no one on that particular floor. Someone wanted your attention. Yes. Those are the intriguing things that they seem to do. They'll either ignore you or they will try and do things.

01:33:26 With the renovations of the museum, you think, oh, my God, it's going to be so active. Nothing since it's been turned upside down. So are they waiting until we finish and then are going to say surprise? Or are they really busy just looking and watching and observing what's happening? Out of curiosity, you just don't know, do you?

01:33:51 Exactly. And I would love to be able to see ghosts and spirits, but I'm quite skeptical as an investigator. But that place still intrigues me eight years on, and I think it will always intrigue me to the end of my days. And if there's such a thing as an afterlife, I know I'm going to go there and haunt it. You're going to become one of the residents, are you?

01:34:17 Oh, yes. I'm going to chase all the others and say, right, I need a conversation with you.

01:34:26 And they'll take out a ghostly restraining order out on me. You'll just get up to mischief, definitely get up to mischief. But there are hundreds and hundreds of report. You could talk for hours about it, but what I say to people is, come and experience it for yourself. If you're lucky, you might walk away with scratching your head and thinking, did I just experience something paranormal?

01:34:55 Or just enjoy the ambience of the history? Because it breathes it and it sucks you in and you want to come back time and time again. And it's such a unique place. I mean, just thinking about where it is and where it sits, when you're talking about ambience, you really can't do much better, can you? And I think it's all of that, but it's that big picture in terms of ambience.

01:35:25 It's what you're getting that you just can't get in many other places, if anywhere, really. When you're at the Jamaica Inn and everyone's gone to bed and you're on your own and you've got the wind howling outside in the rain, beaten on the window panes, and you're down at the lower restaurant and you can just feel it come alive and interestingly. One of the new night porters, he was about four weeks ago, he was working there. He said, about one in the morning, the atmosphere changed. He said he just felt he was being watched and he could hear clinking as he went up to the bar.

01:36:12 There were seven or eight glass pint tankers on a hook and just those were shaking and hitting each other. The others were silent. And I said, what did you do? He said, I just thought I'll go and clean somewhere else.

01:36:34 What does that say about the inn that you must mean to just say, I'll just go somewhere else. But the staff are so used to it. Years ago, housekeeping, when we used to do our Friday nights and there was a lovely lady, she unfortunately passed to cancer, and as soon as she saw us, she used to get really fed up. She said, oh, no, they're going to start. Because she said, Room three, the children, they would clean all the room, the mirrors, then they would go back to check and they would find little handprints all over the mirrors deliberately.

01:37:10 And she used to say, It's your fault because you wound them up, as if like it was a live child that was doing it deliberately. She used to get so angry with us, recalls in her extra work. But I think, again, it speaks to the location that there is something very much real about what it is that you experience there, so much so that it is part of everyday kind of life for the staff, but also the building itself. It's as much part of the building as everything else that we've spoken about.

01:37:48 The Victorian lady that was seen in room 23, people forget there were barns there. She might have been going about doing her daily tasks, even though she was stood in the doorway at two in the morning. And looked up bleary eyed and thought, what's housekeeping doing in here this time of the morning? Saw the lady walk into the bathroom and she never came out again.

01:38:19 Lovely. It is. It's fascinating. It's fabulous. Honestly, I think, like I said, it's the place that you're always finding out new things, so it never gets old, it never gets tired.

01:38:34 There's always something that you're uncovering or something that you're trying and piecing together. And it's fantastic to kind of see that passion for the location itself, but also what you're trying to do within the paranormal as well. I mean, it's incredible. I don't have a fantastic education. I was born and brought up on a rough council estate.

01:39:00 I have a love of history, yes, but academically, my qualifications are terrible. But the joy of the paranormal is it opens up so many wonderful avenues to learn and also opportunities. And I'm just so, so grateful. And you can tell by my prestodian accent as well that being part of this journey of the Jamaica Inn, it's such a blessing. And even now, when tomorrow, when I drive and I go up by the side of the brown willie and I look down and see the Jamaica Inn in the distance, my stomach still does a flip with excitement.

01:39:47 I tell you what I think is exciting about it is that we've spoken about these different people for whom have passed through and the connection that they've had as part of that story of the it all the way back to its very humble beginnings, to how it's grown who's been through there. The different types of arguments, wandering eyes, fights, people who get drunk and have to go and defend their honor. All of these different characters. And in 100 years time, in 200 years time, it's the fact that more than likely, your name, your team's name, what you've been doing are going to. Be part of that story.

01:40:37 Oh, that would be fabulous, to be remembered that way. And without the team, you are nothing. We are a collective and we are so lucky to have different interests and different perspectives and different approaches, and that's what makes it so exciting. Yeah, because you're always trying different things you don't rest on your laurels. You're really trying to engage with asking those types of questions and how can you go about finding it out?

01:41:14 You're testing different things. Things like Cornish language, dressing up in period costume. Ever since the wonderful Lisa made the Georgian dress by hand from original pattern and my 1840s dress for for Mary Downing, it seemed to have changed. So the dressing up, the mannerisms, how people speak, it seems to attract things. And I think as an investigator personally, that's the way we go.

01:41:46 Plus a small knowledge of history. You don't have to be an academic, but just read and listen and absorb as much as you can of the information. Well, it's about trying to make some kind of connection, isn't it? In some manner, find some way of reaching out to allow them as much to see that there's that similarity and to try and communicate back as opposed to two worlds kind of operating very differently. You're trying to bring the two together in some small capacity.

01:42:23 And it makes much more sense that doing that can then stir up activity. Like I say, I never get bored and I hope that I'm there for another eight years, even though I should be very old.

01:42:43 No, not at all. But again, it's such a pleasure coming on and having someone who's so interested in a subject that I could talk for hours for it's pure heaven. I cannot thank you enough. Oh, no, likewise. I love talking to you about the inn.

01:43:05 I mean, it's so fascinating and I hope that people listening really do kind of get a feel for all of its wonders, its history, the people, the sense of time and place, the moments that it's seen, the things that it's seen and been part of. And then also this wonderful thread that runs through it of ghosts and paranormal activity and all the documentation and reporting that you're gathering. I mean, on so many levels, there's so many interests there. And so I really hope that for those that are interested, that they maybe come and see what's happening, find out more, maybe experience some of these things for themselves, but also maybe encourage them to try doing something similar. Can they do a similar type project with a location that they're just as much passionate about as you are?

01:43:59 It's kind of seeing where you can do some of these things for yourself. I think it's to me, I'd help anyone out and any heritage place, and I do that with my other fingers in many pies that I have. But to give something back because of the wonderful opportunities that you're making is opened up. I think it's that Ying and Yang, you need to give back what opportunities have been given to you and also help others. Absolutely.

01:44:36 And I think that's I mean, I've said it before on the podcast. I think doing that within the paranormal is so important because we're not doing things in isolation and we can all learn from each other and we can all gain some insight from what other people are doing, but also sometimes help to see maybe a different approach. Exactly. And I have to give a big shout out to Matt and Chris from Q Studios in Bristol, because Kevin charity has given us a commission to redo the Stable Block video that's ten minutes long. So we're going to update it, but we're also going to actually do a full documentary about the history, the paranormal, and if it all goes to plan, then people might be able to buy copies in the actual gift shop and take home that piece of history.

01:45:40 So, fingers crossed, we might be able to get this all out everywhere and then that will be a platform to build on, same as with your wonderful podcast that goes all around the world. And again, I think that's part of the beauty of being able to do something like this. It's sharing stories, it's sharing history, it's sharing something really incredible with other people who maybe don't have it sitting on their doorstep. And if they do have it sitting on their doorstep, maybe making them aware of what they have on their doorstep. I always say to people, I did a talk at Shepton Mallet Prison a couple of years ago and I said, the thing about us, we walk down a street, we never look up.

01:46:30 If you look up and look at architecture, there is a hidden story to be told of so many buildings with their Georgian facades and ornaments and the carvings, and suddenly you realize there's a world that you've never noticed. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's incredible. And I completely echo what you just said.

01:46:58 I just hope that people who have listened and who've enjoyed this really take the time to look up and notice the inn, if they haven't done so already before. Yeah. And don't forget, there are many haunted rooms if you can't get in three, four, five and six. Absolutely.

01:47:22 The other thing as well that people don't realize is when we sleep, even in a modern building, you can still have a ghost watching you. Yeah, they're not picky. They tend to go everywhere, don't they? Exactly. Except for when I get undressed and then they run away.

01:47:48 Oh, my goodness. They're kind of the images that people have had today with worms, ghosts and naked bodies. I mean, we've had a bit of. Everything, but that's the fun of finding out these wonderful stories. It's brilliant.

01:48:08 Absolutely brilliant. Honestly, thank you so much for giving up so much of your time to share such incredible stories and accounts and history. I mean, honestly, I can't thank you enough. It's been so interesting to listen to talk with you about it, find out things that I didn't know, go in a bit deeper to things that I knew. I mean, honestly, thank you so much on a personal level, but also for everybody that I know is going to be listening.

01:48:35 Thank you. It's always an honor, and you are such a fabulous host. Oh, thank you. And I'll say goodbye to everybody listening. Bye, everybody.

01:48:55 If you've made it to the end of this podcast, a huge thank you for your continued listenership. This was a fantastic episode to celebrate our 100th episode, to be able to revisit a truly phenomenal location with an amazing guest who has been so supportive of the podcast over the years. Karin really is the perfect guest for our 100th episode, and she doesn't disappoint either. As we mentioned in the podcast, this  is a place that really does just keep giving up more of its secrets. And even just a day after Karin and I got together to record this podcast, she unearthed lots of new information that was squirreled away within the inn itself.

01:49:38 She discovered that the land where the Jamaica Inn would be built was in fact owned by two people, Thomas Wills and James Scawen. And on the 12 August 1776, Thomas Wills signed two leases, one granting his share of the land to Thomas Hawke, most likely a relative by marriage of Captain John Broad. The other share was to Broad himself. And interestingly, Thomas Hawke signed his share straight over to John Broad, making him the sole lease tenant. John Broad was in talks to lease his share of the land.

01:50:11 They agreed that this would happen as long as he would, at his own expense, hedge in 20 acres of moreland to create several fields, and on land designated by James would build a large dwelling house with stables and hay lofts. A yearly rent of five shillings, to be paid every quarter was agreed, and the lease, for 99 years or two and a half lifetimes, was settled. Captain Broad, his son James and John were those thus named. This was due to the death of his wife, Mary Bowers, who died not long after the birth of their second child, John, leaving him no option but to leave the sea and settle down to raise his children. It seems he wanted to leave them roots and be settled so they could build their own lives and always have a roof over their heads.

01:50:57 So we now know that the new date is 1776. Plus, the name was due to the  family who traded with Jamaica. Plus, most likely, Captain Broad would have sailed to the island quite a few times. Plus, it was common for more mariners to name an inn after something connected to their former sea life. It all adds to the rich tapestry of stories that continue to be unearthed, the secrets that the inn continues to share.

01:51:24 And who knows, in six months, in a year, in ten years, in another hundred years, what stories will it continue to tell us? Just to give you a little. Idea of what is ahead. Over the next few weeks as part of some upcoming podcasts, you can expect reports and discussions around haunted pubs from Lorien Jones an Interview, Exploring History's

01:51:47 First ghosts from Professor Irving Finkel from the British Museum. We take a look at the Willington Mill Poltergeist haunting and chat with the owner of the old Vicarage Hotel in Bridgewater about its history and Ghosts. This was a location featured on Help My House Is Haunted on the Discovery Channel and I personally think share some of the best EVPs captured I've ever heard. So make sure to keep listening and following the social media pages for some of those updates. And don't forget that for May, June and July, you can listen to daily bonus paranormal content for as little as £1 a month, hundreds of downloads and more to enjoy and celebrate our 100 episodes created at the podcast that have aired so far, and help towards putting out hopefully 100 more.