Jamaica Inn
Jamaica Inn was built in 1750 as a coaching inn – the 18th century version of motorway services. Using the turnpike between Launceston and Bodmin, travellers would stay at the Inn after crossing the wild and treacherous moor, the Inn being exactly halfway between the two towns. Here, horses were changed and weary passengers rested.
Some travellers were less respectable than others and used the Inn as a place to hide goods which had been brought ashore by smugglers. It is thought that half the brandy and a quarter of all tea being smuggled into the UK was landed along the Cornish and Devon coasts. Remote and isolated, Jamaica Inn was an ideal location for stashing this contraband before selling it on. In 1778, the Inn was extended to include a coach house, stables and a tack room, creating the L-shaped main part of the building which can be seen today.
It is often thought that Jamaica Inn was named because it was used to store rum smuggled into the country from Jamaica. However, the name is said to actually have come from the local, landowning Trelawney family, two of whom served as Governors of Jamaica in the 18th century.
Jamaica Inn is famous as the setting for Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, published in 1936. She was inspired to write her novel in 1930 after she and a friend became lost in fog whilst out riding on the moors, and had to stay at the Inn. Whilst recovering from her ordeal, the local rector is said to have entertained her with ghost stories and tales of smuggling.
Today, the Inn is home to the du Maurier Museum, the only museum in the world dedicated to Daphne du Maurier. There are three rooms of exhibits, including personal letters by Daphne to her best friend, Maureen Baker-Munton, revealing secrets about her private life. There are also numerous photos of her and her family. Also in the Inn is the Smuggler’s Museum which has a fascinating collection of smuggling artefacts.
The novel follows the fortune of Mary Yellan, a young woman who goes to live at Jamaica Inn -’That's no place for a girl’- with her Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss after the death of her mother. Mary finds her aunt a pale shadow of the woman she remembers, living in terror of her bullying, drunkard husband. She soon learns that the inn is an unsavoury place and her uncle is not only involved with a group of suspicious locals who appear to be smugglers, but is guilty of a violent past.
It is a dark, violent novel, one which I read far too young and have been put off returning to as a result. Standing outside the Inn on a damp, dismal day, out of season with few tourists in evidence, the Inn maintains a brooding, malevolent air and it is easy to imagine it tempting an unsavoury clientele, keen to keep their illegal dealings quiet. The Inn is no longer isolated- the noise of traffic on the A30 serves as a constant reminder of people nearby and my views across the moor were carefully taken to avoid as many buildings as possible. However, the moors are still readily accessible from the Inn and it is easy to imaging Mary Yellan stoically trudging across them in all weathers.
Love it or loathe it, it is incredible to think that ‘Jamaica Inn’ was written by someone so young. One day, I will read it again…