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The village of BOLVENTOR , lying at the centre of the moor midway
between Bodmin and Launceston, is an uninspiring place close to one of
the moor's chief focuses for walkers and sightseers alike - Jamaica Inn
(tel 01566/86250, ; £50-60). A staging-post even before the precursor of
the A30 road was laid here in 1769, the inn was described by Daphne Du
Maurier as being "alone in glory, four square to the winds", and the
combination of its convenient position and its association with her has
led to its growth into a hotel and restaurant complex. One corner
exhibits the room where the author stayed in 1930, soaking up
inspiration for her smuggler's yarn. At the other end of the building is
the entertaining Museum of Curiosities (daily: Easter-Oct 10am-6pm,
until 8pm during school holidays; Nov-Easter 11am-4pm; £2.50; combined
ticket with Smuggler's Museum £4).
The inn's car park is a useful place from which to venture forth on foot.
Just over a mile south, Dozmary Pool is another link in the West
Country's Arthurian mythologies - after Arthur's death Sir Bedivere
hurled Excalibur, the king's sword, into the pool, where it was seized
by an arm raised from the depths. Despite its proximity to the A30, the
diamond-shaped lake usually preserves an ethereal air, though it's been
known to run dry in summer, dealing a bit of a blow to the legend that
the pool is bottomless. The lake is also the source of another, more
obviously Cornish legend, that of John Tregeagle, a steward at
Lanhydrock, whose unjust dealings with the local tenant farmers in the
seventeenth century brought upon his spirit the curse of endlessly
baling out the pool with a perforated limpet shell. As if this were not
enough, his ghost is further tormented by a swarm of devils pursuing him
as he flies across the moor in search of sanctuary; their infernal
howling is sometimes audible on windy nights.
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