The Cornish Smugglers’ Pubs Hiding More Than Beer

A schoolmaster who printed his own money. A shaft cut into rock that led nowhere anyone would confirm. A killing the coast tried, for a while, to forget.

This is the story of how a Cornish harbour learned to keep a secret better than any tunnel ever could.

In this episode, we begin at The Three Pilchards in Polperro, one of the old harbour pubs tied to Cornwall’s smuggling memory. But this is not simply a story about tunnels beneath pubs. It is a story about the hidden system behind the legends: cellars, coves, horses, ledgers, warehouses, pack routes, silence and money.

At the centre of the story is Zephaniah Job, a Polperro schoolmaster turned smugglers’ banker. His ledgers helped finance the trade, his money helped defend captured smugglers, and his locally printed banknotes survive as proof that Cornwall’s “free trade” was far more organised than a few barrels rolled up from the beach.

Further along the coast in Penzance, we examine the 2008 discovery beneath the Abbey Warehouse, where developers found tunnel shafts cut into the rock. We treat this find carefully, noting where the physical evidence ends and where local legend about the Admiral Benbow begins.

The episode also follows the story through Smugglers Cott in Looe, Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor, and Prussia Cove, where John Carter ran his trade with the precision of a merchant.
It closes with the Lottery Incident of 1798, the killing of Customs Officer Humphry Glinn, and the trial that cracked one part of the coast’s long silence. Romanticised as Cornish smuggling often is today, this trade carried real consequence.

IN THIS EPISODE:
???? The grey mare signal said to have warned Polperro of an incoming shipment
???? Zephaniah Job, the schoolmaster who became the smugglers’ banker
????️ The 2008 discovery of tunnel shafts beneath a Penzance warehouse
⚓ John Carter of Prussia Cove, who ran his trade like a business
⚖️ The Lottery Incident and the Old Bailey trial that broke the silence

CHAPTERS::
00:00 The Quiet Secrets of Cornwall
04:22 Zephaniah Job: The Smugglers’ Banker
06:27 The Admiral Benbow and the Hidden Shafts
07:44 The Legends of Looe
08:32 Isolation on the Moor: Jamaica Inn
09:26 Prussia Cove and John Carter
10:50 The Lottery Incident and the Price of Silence
13:11 The Tunnels Between Neighbours

KEY LOCATIONS:
The Three Pilchards, Polperro
Crumplehorn Mill, Polperro
The Admiral Benbow, Penzance
The Abbey Warehouse, Penzance
Smugglers Cott, Looe
Jamaica Inn, Bodmin Moor
Prussia Cove, Mount’s Bay

RELATED VIDEOS:
???? The Whitechapel Pubs Where Jack the Ripper’s Victims Spent Their Final Hours: https://youtu.be/Ch5M77flTEU
???? This Pub Killed 60 People. Nobody Blamed the Landlord: https://youtu.be/Nv0r-TujkIg?si=2RH6Kc3qJG4eHz5t
#DarkHistory #PubHistory #Cornwall
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