A30 Jamaica Inn and Bodmin Moor Ghosts

The A30 road crosses the wild expanse of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, passing through some of England’s most atmospheric and desolate landscape. At the heart of this haunted stretch stands Jamaica Inn, a coaching inn dating to 1750 that has become synonymous with smuggling, murder, and paranormal activity. The inn and the surrounding moorland are home to multiple ghosts, making this section of the A30 one of Britain’s most intensely haunted road locations. The isolation of the moor, combined with centuries of tragic deaths and criminal activity, has created a concentration of paranormal phenomena.

Jamaica Inn itself is haunted by several entities. The most famous is the ghost of a murdered sailor who manifests in the bar area, appearing as a figure in maritime clothing sitting silently before vanishing. Staff and guests report hearing footsteps on the inn’s ancient floors when no one is there, doors opening and closing by themselves, and the sensation of being watched. The inn’s museum of smuggling history contains artifacts that some believe carry psychic energy from their violent past. Outside, the courtyard and stable areas have witnessed apparitions of coaches and horses, residual hauntings from the inn’s days as a major coaching stop on the road to the west.

The moorland around Jamaica Inn adds its own ghostly population. Motorists traveling the A30 at night report phantom horsemen riding across the moor, mysterious lights moving in the darkness, and shadowy figures standing by the roadside who vanish when approached. The moor has claimed many lives over the centuries—travelers lost in fog, victims of violence, those who perished in harsh weather—and their spirits are said to wander still. The stretch of the A30 near Jamaica Inn also intersects with the legend of the Beast of Bodmin, a cryptid big cat, adding another layer of strangeness to an already otherworldly location. Driving across Bodmin Moor at night remains an eerie experience, where the boundary between the living and the dead seems particularly thin.