Mitchell

Although Mitchell never benefitted from Cornwall's many mining booms, in its time it was a town of some importance. Set in a rich lowland farming area, it was also an important staging post on the main coach road from London. From the look of them it's a reasonable assumption that both the attractive Plume of Feathers inn and nearby Raleigh House were once coaching inns. There are other attractive buildings in town, too: the delightful Georgian Wellesley Farm and a row of cottages on the main street. Politically, Mitchell also once had its importance. You may wonder at the names Raleigh and Wellesley in a minor Cornish town but there is, in fact, a very simple if surprising explanation. From 1547 to the Reform Act of 1832 it was a 'rotten borough', it's very few property owning voters returning two members to parliament. Indeed, in 1593 Devon born Sir Walter Raleigh was one of these as in 1807 was Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington. I remember well when the main road to holiday country of St. Ives and Penzance passed right along Mitchell's main street. Then the holiday season must have made it a traffic nightmare for its residents; now Mitchell is bypassed by the modern A30 and is a sleepy attractive village.

Signed from A30, 15 miles west of Bodmin

The classy Plume of Feathers Inn in Mitchell