Today we met up with some of Melanie's oldest friends, Claire, Nigel and their daughter Cara. Claire's teacher exchange experience in New Zealand was what inspired James parents to move out there in the first place so I suppose I have a lot to thank her for! After meeting at their house, we all drove out to Lanhydrock where there is a Victorian Manor House and a vast number of mountain bike and walking trails around the estate. We spent the morning exploring the manor house where the Agar-Robartes family lived up until the first world war.
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| The magnificent house! |
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| Nigel, Claire and Cara |
The house was amazing, it was decorated and furnished like it was still in working order about to have the family walk in the door of any of the rooms at any moment. The kitchens and dining rooms were even decorated with real food!
The bedchambers and nursery areas I liked best because they reminded me of a lot of the childhoos stories I read that were written in the early 1900s such as Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, The Little White Horse and even some of Enid Blyton's work. It was fascinating to see childhood fantasies come to life.
And as with many of the places we have visited on this trip the Gardens were amazing with all the trees perfectly sculpted!
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| Claire and Mel in the Chapel |
After a picnic lunch James and I were dropped off in Bodmin where we walked to Bodmin Jail, the place of Britain's last ever execution on 13 August 1964. I was half expecting it to be a bit like Carnglaze Caverns and only take us 20 minutes or so but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the advertising belittled the amount on display. There were about 5 or 6 floors of the prison to explore in total and all of it was fascinating, we didn't come out again until 4 pm so we must have been in there a good hour or more!
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| The Jail from the outside |
Many of the old cells were set up to display the crimes that some of the more famous prisoners committed.
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| Set light to her neighbours fields and crops |
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| Committed murder in the cellars |
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| Killed his wife and threw her in the fireplace |
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| Stole milk from a cow |
Others were set up to show the various punishment methods:
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| Female whipping post |
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| Vertical treadmills for hard labour |
Unfortunately the batteries on my camera ran out at this point but we also got to see all the old heating systems (a lot of the jail was underground), the kitchen areas, the still working gallows where the last two hangings occurred, the old lift shaft, and many interesting newspaper excerpts.
We still managed to return to Lanhydrock with enough time to have a go on the mountain bikes that the others had been on for most of the afternoon. We managed 3 laps of the skills and one of the medium trails which was 2 miles (3 km) and we completed in 19 minutes :)
We were stoked to be able to fit everything in! But John, Mel and Sam must have endless energy because they all went off to a football game tonight while James and I relaxed in an extremely quiet house!
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