Jamaica Inn

Jamaica Inn stands on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, a windswept stretch of wild land where the granite hills Brown Willy and Rough Tor rise nearby. The inn itself was built in 1750 as a coaching stop on the old London–Penzance road, its slate walls and cobbled yard recalling the days when horses were changed and travellers rested. Close by lie Dozmary Pool and a branch of the River Fowey, while older traces of human life appear in hut circles and ancient stream works scattered across the moor. The inn became famous through Daphne du Maurier’s 1936 novel set there, a story of smugglers and danger that Hitchcock turned into a film three years later. Smugglers once used secret tracks across Cornwall’s rocky coast, and the inn served as a hiding place for silks, tea and brandy. The building still holds a museum of smuggling with posters, pottery figures and even a bag of Jamaican ganja, alongside items belonging to du Maurier. Inside, the Smuggler’s Bar keeps its 18th-century beams and a great granite fireplace, its floor sloping from centuries of use. A rusty anchor and red telephone box stand in the courtyard, while the museum tells the tale of wreckers who lured ships onto the rocks. Beyond the inn, the moor stretches empty to the horizon, its solitude the same as when wreckers lit their false beacons long ago.