Inside the luxury Cornwall hotel set in the historic walls of Bodmin Jail
An historic prison in Cornwall has been transformed into a luxury hotel.
Bodmin Jail has loomed large over the Cornish town for centuries.
Initially built by prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars in 1779, it was the first prison to hold inmates in individual cells and spent the next 150 years as the county's major jail.
After its closure in 1927, the jail mostly fell into disrepair but a small part of the site was reopened as a tourist attraction.
It was later sold for demolition, but attempts to destroy it were unsuccessful because the dynamite used could not penetrate the former prison's thick walls.
In its former days as a prison, executions were a regular attraction for the thousands of people who would turn up to watch a prisoner's final moments.
Demand was so high that a train station was specifically built near the jail, and many used to sit and watch from inside the carriages that stopped in plain sight.
Now after eight decades of ruin, a holidaying billionaire businessman has transformed the former jail into a luxury hotel.
The end result of a four-year redevelopment plan, it preserves most of the original features of Bodmin Jail, with rooms built in old cells and hospital wings.
Ahead of its reopening in May, CornwallLive shared pictures of an exclusive first look at the spectacular hotel that aims to bring back to life a huge part of Bodmin's history.
A stay in the hotel could set you back hundreds of pounds, with a classic room costing between £250 and £350 with breakfast included.
If you want to revel in the rich history of the location, you can also purchase hotel stays with museum tickets.
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