Spirits are sending messages from beyond the grave at the Royal Mail delivery office in Bodmin.
In the ‘Bodmin Town Conservation Area Character Appraisal’ Bodmin is described as, ‘…an early medieval monastic settlement’. A town that is steeped in history and one that saw a ‘boom period’ in the 19th Century when it became the County Town of Cornwall.
One of many buildings that are included in the Conservation area boundary is ‘The Post Office’ on St Nicholas Street which is now in use as the Royal Mail Delivery Office. According to the appraisal, ‘The Post Office was built in 1924 on the site of a former workhouse, later used as the East Cornwall Hospital.’
You may be too busy watching out for pedestrians trying to cross Bodmin’s famous non-zebra crossings to notice this unassuming building that sits at the centre of a bustling commuter route through Bodmin.
However, now you know the site’s dark past, perhaps it is not surprising that there are stories of hauntings and spooky happenings from those that work within its walls.
There have been reports of lights being switched on and off on their own, disembodied sounds of people coughing, mysterious bumps and bangs and the sound of heavy items being moved when no one else is around!
One of the cleaners is reported to often feel like someone is behind them when no-one is around, and mysterious scratches have appeared on a postman’s arm two times, on the same day but a year apart – the Christmas night shift in fact! It must be hard to record those injuries in any workplace accident report book!
Postman Scott Cavill told Bodmin Life: “Once, I thought I had seen a woman poke her head around the corner one morning. I didn’t think much of it until I found out that a colleague of mine spotted the same woman and even asked her how she got into the office. When he went to open the door to ask her to leave, she had disappeared.”
At Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows’ Eve, they say the veil between worlds becomes thinner and that the land of the living and land of the dead become closer. Perhaps this is the perfect time to send a message from beyond the grave, and who better to deliver it than a postie!
Have you experienced anything spooky in Bodmin? Let us know. Email mimi@life-media.co.uk