Jamaica Inn (guest house)

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Jamaica Inn: main building

The Jamaica Inn is an 18th-century listed inn near the hamlet of Bolventor ( civil parish Altarnun ) in Cornwall , England . It is located in the sparsely populated Bodmin Moor about 6 km south of Brown Willy on the A30 highway that runs from London to Land's End . The Jamaica Inn is the setting of the 1936 novel of the same name (German title Gasthaus Jamaica ) by Daphne du Maurier and its film adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock from 1939 (German title Riff-Piraten and Die Taverne von Jamaica ).

history

Complete system from the A30

According to the current operator, the two-storey main building was built in 1750 and expanded in 1778 to include a coach house , stables and a saddle room for use as a relaxation area. English Heritage names the late 18th century as the period of origin in the monument description. In the 19th century, the main building, with a slate-clad facade and a pitch-coated slate roof, was extended by one room per floor to the left and right of the gable fronts that originally ended with two chimneys. The name of the restaurant comes from the fact that two members of the local landowning family Trelawny were governors of Jamaica (Edward Trelawny 1738–1752, Sir William Trelawny 1767–1772). The Trelawny Parish in Jamaica is named after Sir William Trelawny . When the coast of Cornwall was badly hit by beach robberies in the late 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century , the Jamaica Inn served as a warehouse for the contraband stolen from the ships. In his 1865 travel guide to Devon and Cornwall, John Murray certified that the Inn was only modest in comfort.

During a stay at the Jamaica Inn, Daphne du Maurier was inspired to write her novel, published in 1936, which takes place in the wrecking and smuggling community of the 1820s. Parts of the external filming for Alfred Hitchcock's novel adaptation from 1939 took place directly on site. On the other hand, the remake was not filmed on the original location as a television series from 1983.

Daphne du Maurier's Smugglers Museum in the former coach house

In 1988 the main and ancillary buildings were classified as Grade II buildings . From 1984 to 2003 the Jamaica Inn housed Mr Potter's Museum of Curiosities , which attracted around 30,000 visitors annually. It was the collection of the prepared animals of the taxidermist Walter Potter (1835–1918), which had been put together to create artistic dioramas . The collection was auctioned off in 2003 by the London auction house Bonhams . The Jamaica Inn currently houses a restaurant and hotel as well as Daphne du Maurier's Smugglers Museum , which is mostly housed in the former coach house. The exhibition mainly contains objects related to the history of beach robbery and smuggling in Cornwall, as well as a room with personal effects by Daphne du Maurier. Tori Amos made a reference to the inn and its history at the time of the beach robbers with the title Jamaica Inn on her album The Beekeeper (2005).

Spooky

The haunted mugger as a mural in the Jamaica Inn

The Jamaica Inn also gained notoriety as the alleged location of various haunted apparitions. According to a legend associated with the house, a seaman is said to have been called into the courtyard by a mysterious stranger from the inn and was later found murdered there. The victim's ghost often sits at night on a wall very close to the murder scene. Other ghosts were spotted in the rooms again and again. This includes a man in a green coat who is said to be regularly standing at the foot of the guest beds. According to legend, this is a mugger named Jack Trevellis, who is said to have been a regular in the restaurant around 1790. A certain room is haunted by the ghost of a young woman with an infant in her arms, who always disappears through the mirror as soon as the guest sees her. Spooky acoustic phenomena have also been reported, such as footsteps in empty corridors and voices speaking in a foreign language. According to some witnesses, this is the Cornish, which has been extinct in the area for centuries . At dawn, in particular, guests were woken up by the clatter of hoofs in the paved courtyard. When looking out the window, however, there were no horses to be seen. In April 2004, the apparitions at the Jamaica Inn were the subject of an episode of the Sky Living documentary television series Most Haunted that deals with haunted locations.

Web links

Commons : Jamaica Inn  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jamaica Inn: History , accessed October 27, 2011.
  2. ^ A b British Listed Buildings: Jamaica Inn, Altarnun, accessed October 27, 2011.
  3. ↑ Jamaica at worldstatesmen.org.Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  4. ^ Richard Jones: Haunted Inns of Britain and Ireland , New Holland, London 2004, ISBN 1-84330-732-4 , p. 13.
  5. ^ Cornwall Tourism: Cornwall Tourism Guide , accessed October 27, 2011.
  6. ↑ Sally Shalam: Hotel review: Jamaica Inn, Cornwall in The Guardian, October 30, 2010, accessed October 27, 2011.
  7. ^ John Murray: A Handbook for Travelers in Devon and Cornwall . John Murray, London 1865, p. 206.
  8. ^ Jean Paschke: The Cornwall of Daphne du Maurier , on historynet.com (2007), accessed October 27, 2011.
  9. ↑ Filming locations for The Tavern of Jamaica (1939) in the Internet Movie Database , accessed October 27, 2011.
  10. ↑ Filming Locations for Jamaica Inn (1983) in the Internet Movie Database , accessed October 27, 2011.
  11. ^ Walter Potter of Bramber West Sussex , accessed October 27, 2011.
  12. ↑ Bonhams: Mr Potters Museum of Curiosities ( Memento of the original of February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 27, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bonhams.com
  13. ↑ Jamaica Inn: Daphne du Maurier's Smugglers Museum , accessed October 27, 2011.
  14. ↑ Tori Amos - Jamaica Inn  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from Radiosonar (student radio at Southampton Solent University ), accessed October 27, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / radiosonar.co.uk  
  15. ↑ The source for the section is mainly Richard Jones: Haunted Inns of Britain and Ireland , New Holland, London 2004, ISBN 1-84330-732-4 , pp. 13-15, and Dennis William Hauck: The International Directory of Haunted Places . Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, and Other Supernatural Locations , Penguin Books, New York / London 2000, ISBN 0-14-029635-2 , pp. 33f. and Roy Christian: Ghosts and Legends , David and Charles, Newton Abbott 1976, ISBN 0-7153-5703-4 , p. 116.
  16. ↑ Most Haunted: Jamaica Inn (2004) in the Internet Movie Database , accessed October 27, 2011.

Coordinates: 50 ° 33 '44.3 "  N , 4 ° 34' 0.1"  W.