Haunted place · England, United Kingdom

Bodmin Jail

Updated November 20266 sources How to visit

As seen on Most Haunted

Bodmin Jail, Cornwall: 1779 prison where over 50 were hanged, said to be haunted by Selina Wadge, and site of Most Haunted's 'Kreed Kafer' hoax.

The story

Bodmin Jail, also spelled Bodmin Gaol, stands in the Cornish town of Bodmin, on the edge of Bodmin Moor. Sir John Call designed it, and it was completed in 1779, and prisoners of war are said to have provided part of the labor. The jail is often described as the first prison in Britain to hold inmates in individual cells. It also served as a debtors' prison.

The jail's history is a grim one. In roughly 150 years of use, more than fifty people were hanged there in public, before executions moved behind the walls. One of the best remembered is that of Selina Wadge, an inmate of the Launceston workhouse, who was put to death on August 15, 1878. She was 28, and had been convicted of drowning Henry, her two-year-old disabled boy, known as Harry, in a well. Her execution, carried out by the hangman William Marwood, was private, and the press was kept out.

The building played an unexpected role at the end of the First World War: in 1918 and 1919 it sheltered important national records, among them the Domesday Book, for safekeeping. The prison closed in 1927. Over the following decades much of the large complex fell into ruin, while part of it was opened to the public as a tourist attraction.

From 2015 the site was redeveloped on a large scale. One major section was converted into a hotel, which opened in 2021, while the remaining historic buildings became a museum and visitor experience. The attraction preserves original cells and the administration block, and a re-creation of Bodmin Moor occupies the area where the old hospital wing once stood.

The legend

With its history of executions, Bodmin Jail has inspired a stream of ghost stories, drawn paranormal researchers and built a large part of its business around ghost walks. The jail's own website states that genuine paranormal activity happens regularly throughout the building and that visitors frequently experience interactions, but it does not name any individual ghost; it presents the whole site as active.

The ghost most often named elsewhere is Selina Wadge. According to tourism and press sources cited on Wikipedia, she shows herself on the jail's third and fourth floors, wearing a long dress, and she is said to respond especially to children and pregnant women, an echo of the story of the son she killed. No source dates the first reported sighting, and the ghost tradition seems to have grown alongside the attraction itself; the Guardian wrote about the jail's ghost tours in 2016.

The jail's most famous paranormal moment is also its most embarrassing. In 2005 the television series Most Haunted brought presenter Yvette Fielding and medium Derek Acorah to Bodmin for an episode listed as Series 6, Episode 1 on Wikipedia's article about the jail and as Episode 2, broadcast March 29, 2005, in the show's episode list. After a long night of mostly fruitless attempts, the team claimed contact with various light and sound phenomena, and Acorah announced that he had been possessed by the spirit of a South African named Kreed Kafer.

There had never been any such person. The show's own parapsychologist, Ciarán O'Keeffe, later revealed that he had invented the name as a test of Acorah: "Kreed Kafer" is an anagram of "Derek Faker." O'Keeffe said he had also invented a second name, Rik Eedles, from "Derek Lies," and had crew members drop both names within the medium's hearing. During the broadcast itself O'Keeffe merely remarked that no records linked anyone called Kreed Kafer to the jail. Once the test became public it turned into a major scandal for the show, and skeptics, including the Bad Psychics website, still cite it as the classic demonstration that the program's medium was not genuine.

The episode is a useful lesson for anyone reading about Bodmin's ghosts. Selina Wadge was a real woman with a tragic story, but the reports of her ghost come from tourism and media sources rather than documented investigations, and the one widely publicized "contact" at the jail proved to be invented.

What remains today

Much of the original complex survives, partly as a ruin and partly restored. The visitor attraction includes original cell blocks and the administration building, along with a re-creation of Bodmin Moor where the hospital wing used to be. Another large part of the old prison now operates as a hotel.

Visiting

Bodmin Jail is open to the public as a museum and visitor attraction, with heritage tours and self-guided visits; check the official website for current hours and tickets. It runs a full program of ghost events itself: an evening lantern-lit ghost walk for ages 12 and over, late-night After Dark ghost hunts with equipment on Friday and Saturday nights, overnight sessions for adults (monthly, plus each Saturday throughout October), self-guided experiences such as the Dark Walk, and Halloween events. The After Dark sessions include hands-on use of paranormal equipment.

The hotel occupies part of the old jail, so overnight guests can stay inside the historic walls. The ruined sections outside the attraction are not open, so book through the official tours rather than exploring on your own.

The ghosts

Prisoner

Selina Wadge

Said to be Selina Wadge (c.1850-1878), Launceston workhouse inmate hanged at Bodmin on 15 August 1878 for drowning her son

Reports place her, in a long dress, on the jail's top two floors, where she supposedly responds most to children and pregnant women. The reports come from tourism and media sources, not documented investigations.