Bolventor
Jamaica Inn from the old A30
Bolventor is located in Cornwall
Bolventor
Bolventor
Location within Cornwall
OS grid referenceSX184767
Civil parish
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLAUNCESTON
Postcode districtPL15
Dialling code01566
PoliceDevon and Cornwall
FireCornwall
AmbulanceSouth Western
UK Parliament

Bolventor (Cornish: Bedhasbold) is a hamlet on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in Altarnun civil parish between Launceston and Bodmin.[1]

Toponymy

The hamlet has been said to take its name from the "Bold Venture" that it must have appeared to build a farm in this moorland, but this is probably folk etymology, as "Bol-" is a common prefix in Cornish placenames. It is much more likely that the name derives from the 'Bold Adventure' tin-working area which was in operation near Jamaica Inn during the 1840s-1850s [2]

Jamaica Inn

Bolventor is the location of the famous Jamaica Inn coaching inn. It is bypassed by a dual carriageway section of the A30 trunk road; before the bypass was built the hamlet straddled the A30 road.

Daphne du Maurier, a former resident, chose Bolventor as the setting for her novel about Cornish smugglers titled Jamaica Inn. The inn that inspired the novel, Jamaica Inn, has stood beside the main road through the village since 1547. It is now a tourist attraction in its own right and dominates the hamlet. The Jamaica Inn was the subject of a paranormal investigation during a 2004 episode of reality television programme Most Haunted.

Church

Holy Trinity Church, Bolventor

The former Holy Trinity Church that lies to the east of the hamlet closed some years ago. A mile from Bolventor there was a chapel of St Luke (from the 13th to the early 16th century): the font is now at the church of Tideford.[3] Bolventor parish was established in 1846 (before that date the village was in St Neot parish; the new parish was made up of parts of St Neot, Altarnun and Cardinham parishes[4]) but has now been merged with Altarnun.

1945 Air Disaster

On 14 September 1945 a Royal Air Force Handley Page Halifax Mk VII (PN305) was operating a flight from RAF Tarrant Rushton, Dorset to Lajes Field, Azores, Portugal. During the flight an electrical failure occurred causing a dingy inside the wing to inflate dislodge from stowage. The dingy wrapped around the tail assembly and the aircraft went into a nose dive, crashing into the Priddacombe area of Bolventor. All 21 onboard, seven crew and fourteen passengers died in the crash.[5] [6] [7] [8]

References

  1. ↑ Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 201 Plymouth & Launceston ISBN 978-0-319-23146-3
  2. ↑ R. D. Penhallurick Tin in Antiquity (2008) Maney; p. 207
  3. ↑ Cornish Church Guide (1925) Truro: Blackford; p. 62
  4. ↑ Beacham, Peter & Pevsner, Nikolaus (2014). Cornwall. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12668-6; p. 117
  5. ↑ "RAF Davidstow Moor :: View 1945 Crash Log". Archived from the original on 15 March 2016.
  6. ↑ https://airc rewremembered.com/fraser-alfred.html
  7. ↑ "Aircraftman 1st Class P FITZGIBBON (1599165), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve) [Royal Air Force WW2 Casualty ]".
  8. ↑ "Crash of a Handley Page H.P.63 Halifax VII in Bolventor: 21 killed | Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives".
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