Bodmin is the county town of Cornwall as the county long understood the term: from 1838 its assizes met here, and the courts and county business followed. In Kernewek it is Bosvena, and the monks were here early: Saint Petroc founded a monastery at Bodmin in the sixth century, and Bodmin is the only large Cornish settlement recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Rebellions
Bodmin was a centre of the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 and again of the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, both of which ended in defeat and heavy reckoning. The town has carried the memory of that dissent since, quietly and steadily.
The town's stones
St Petroc's Church was rebuilt between 1469 and 1472 and still stands over the town. Bodmin Jail was the first British prison to hold prisoners in separate cells, a reform of its day. Above the town, on the Beacon, a granite obelisk to Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert was raised in 1857, and it is still the first thing you see coming in from the moor.
Sources
Last checked: 2026-10-11