Back Track.

After speaking to Mum on the phone I am now more au fait with ‘Trebartha’ and discover that those unused gates we first stopped at have a Rodd Crest on them… we have to go back and see them. Back along beautiful patchwork quilt like countryside with unbroken hedges, which we discover are made of stone on the bottom with hedge plants, ivy, blackberry and what ever else will grow keeping the stone wall intact, no wonder we hardly see any broken down dry stone walls.

This photo shows one of the entrances to Trebartha, I guess this is one of the many little Gate Houses around the estate. Oh dear… I am a bad bad person… it must have been my Convict Ancestry that kicked aside my Landed Gentry Ancestry because something made me wiggle and wiggle a little bit of a dry stone wall and guess what?? A little piece of ‘Trebartha’ fell into my hands!!


Quickly off to Jamaica Inn before they set the hounds after me! I am interested in seeing the Inn not only because Daphne Du Maurier wrote a book set here but I am also interested to see how far it is from Trebartha because all this land was once owned by Rodd’s, it’s about 10 miles across which is quite a distance for property in England.

Jamaica Inn is all that I hoped, except it is in very good nick, I was expecting a run down wind swept stone building… but no the owners obviously know they have a little gem here and seem to have plenty of accommodation available… it’s an imposing old slate walled building set high on a hill surrounded by the windswept Bodmin Moors… just as it is described by Daphne Du Maurier, the sun was trying to come out but the wind up here had an icy chill to it which made the sign creak as it swung too and fro. The Museum was closed but I did manage to find a copy of Jamaica Inn in the very tatty Gift Shop and have got back into the story of Mary Yellan already. I remember reading this book many many years ago and it’s stayed with me as the scariest book I’d read… I wonder if that will still be so after being there and seeing it!
Jamaica Inn
Bodmin Moor.

Next on our agenda… Lunch at the Blisland Inn in Blisland a little out of the way pub that has won more awards for its Ales than any other in the West Country… David is in heaven enjoying one of his three ‘B’s Tour*, savouring the flavour of a pint of Skinners Best Bitter from Truro and a pint of Sharps Blisland Special and a half of Sharps Blisland Bulldog. The Landlord is off to London soon to accept his latest award, the first time he has been over the Tamar Bridge in three years.

* David is on a Three ‘B’ Tour… Britain, Beer and Buses!!