21/02/2026
I’m really sorry I’ve not really posted much on here, life has been a bit full on lately, and an unexpected secondment hasn’t left much time for anything else.
I wanted to say thank you for all the Bodmin history books kind people keep giving me, I’ve built up quite the library now. I knew a bit about the history of our town, but from speaking to people day to day I’ve realised I’ve only scratched the surface of what Bodmin really has to offer.
What I wouldn’t give to jump back and see it at pivotal moments in time: Thomas Flamank rallying the Cornish ready to march on England, St Petroc arriving in Bodmin fed up with Viking raids, Castle Canyke as a fully functioning hill fort keeping watch over the path into Cornwall, the Yanks on a night out in Bodmin before the Normandy landings, or the Great Hall on Fore Street gathered around the medieval fireplace. More and more snapshots spring to mind as I write this, so I’ll stop before I get lost in them.
As my secondment comes to an end and my future in this great town is uncertain, I hope to dive back into its history and share more with you.
I was lucky enough, through work, to climb Berry Tower. Slightly challenging at my height, but walking backwards down the stairs really helped. I can’t remember why I instinctively did it, maybe I read it somewhere… perhaps while reading about Longshanks!
Berry Tower is all that remains of the Chapel of the Holy Rood, built in the early 1500s on the site of a much older religious settlement in the Berry area. Work began in 1501 and took around a decade to complete, with stone hauled from nearby quarries and the tower rising slowly each summer. When finished, it was an impressive structure with lead roofing, wooden floors and granite pinnacles topped with iron crosses, built to serve a chapel and burial ground for the local community.
The site itself is deeply tied to Bodmin’s early monastic past. Tradition holds that one of Bodmin’s earliest monasteries stood in this area, helping establish the town as an important religious centre and place of pilgrimage after the relics of St Petroc were brought here.
Sadly, the tower’s working life was short. Within a few decades, Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries closed Bodmin’s friary and religious chapels, and the Chapel of the Holy Rood fell into ruin, leaving only the tower standing.
Standing there today, it’s hard not to imagine the chapel bells calling worshippers to prayer, pilgrims arriving in the town, and watchmen looking out over a medieval Bodmin shaped by faith, trade and royal rule under the Duchy of Cornwall — including the era of the Black Prince.
It’s a quiet place now, but one that carries centuries of Bodmin’s story in its stones.
