Bodmin Jail Hotel: The 18th-Century British Jail is Now a New Luxury Hotel

The jail was built in 1779 and has four storeys and 70 rooms

It is not a new thing to transform a jail into a prison. It has been a trend since the 1990s when Sultanahmet Prison and an Oxford site have done that. A new addition to this is the transformation of Bodmin Jail into a new luxury hotel in Britain. Here is how it happened.

The property was built in 1779 and has four storeys and 70 rooms. The rooms were well-ventilated living quarters for inmates. About 55 hangings took place on the gibbets of the property. To transform the jail into a new luxury hotel, about USD 71 million (AUD 91 million) were spent over six years.

The man who led the task of transforming a centuries-old jail into a new luxury hotel was the lead architect of the project, Matt Cartwright. He combined three cells to create suite-style rooms and spent some time cutting through the interior walls. Talking about that, he said, “They’re 60cm [around 24”] thick, and filled with loose rubble, so as soon as you cut a hole in one, the rubble falls out. And there were so many bats, which you couldn’t remove without a permit for certain months of the year, otherwise they might have been mating.”

When transforming the jail into a new luxury hotel in Britain, Cartwright retained much of the rough-hewn textures of the walls. He also preserved some other historical details. The price of each of these suites begins at USD 283 (About AUD 365), and you get a free breakfast. The property is also available on a full buyout basis.

The onsite chapel of the jail is now the main bar-restaurant of the new luxury hotel. On the top level is a grand piano. The condemned cell is the only cell that has not been converted into a bedroom. It seems logical as it was the place where prisoners spent the last night before execution and received their last rites. Located in Cornwall, the new luxury hotel is getting a lot of attention from those who hear about it.