The Hanging Pit: The Haunting of Bodmin Jail

Richard Estep’s The Hanging Pit examines Bodmin Jail in Cornwall, a former prison associated with more than 50 hangings and numerous reports of haunting. The book sets the site’s reputation against its history, including the deaths of prisoners whose bodies were buried within the jail grounds.

Estep recounts investigations conducted with fellow paranormal researchers through the jail’s cells, corridors and underground chambers, including the area known as the Hanging Pit. Reported sounds, sensations and other apparent phenomena are considered alongside the investigators’ attempts to assess what they encountered. The result combines dark history with a first-hand account of paranormal fieldwork at one of England’s best-known haunted locations.