Latest News

July 6th, 2023

Dealing With Disaster – New Exhibition!

Our new exhibition, Dealing with Disaster highlights the British Army’s role in natural disaster relief and delves into one of...

3rd Battalion DCLI leaving the Torpoint Ferry August 1913
April 3rd, 2026

Historical Threads: General Smith-Dorrien and the DCLI

There are many controversies regarding British generalship in the First World War and the subject is too large and complicated...

Flamm 2026 28 Feb-1 Mar 2026 Bodmin
January 30th, 2026

Keepers by Rachael Jones

On the last day of February and the first day of March, an art festival called FLAMM will take place...

January 30th, 2026

A Napoleonic Treasure

Perhaps the most valuable items stored within an archive are the first hand accounts of experiences endured. We are fortunate...

December 15th, 2025

History Repeated: Aden in the Archives

The 1/4th Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry were warned for active service on 8 January 1916 and...

October 24th, 2025

Why we are here

I have been pondering the more poetic language used to describe the British Army. The Regiment is a ‘family’; the...

September 3rd, 2025

Cornwall’s Home Guard

Establishing the Home Guard On 14 May 1940, and only four days after Churchill had become Prime Minister, his Secretary...

Private Augustus Hutchings New Testament Bible
August 4th, 2025

A Testament to Friendship

At Bodmin Keep we have been entrusted to protect and care for thousands of artefacts that have held meaning to...

Photo credit: GE-S-E-10551. Reproduced by kind permission of Kresen Kernow
June 5th, 2025

Victory in Europe Day

VE Day Rightly celebrates the end of a truly awful European war and those who celebrated in May 1945 knew...

April 9th, 2025

April to early May: Pursuit through Germany and surrender

The opening entry in the War Diary for 5 DCLI – the Cornish battalion – for 1 April 1945 noted:...

April 9th, 2025

March 1945 – Crossing The Rhine

Following the battles of the Reichwald, by 1 March 1945, the War Diary of the 5th Battalion of the Duke...

March 3rd, 2025

February 1945: The battles of the Reichwald

Between D Day on 6 June 1944 and VE Day on 8 May 1945 the Allied advance towards Germany saw...

M29 Weasel followed by a DUKW amphibious vehicle navigate down a flooded avenue
March 3rd, 2025

5 DCLI January 1945: Gargling, Weasels, and Kangaroos

[i]             The National Archive, WO171-5177, pp. 5-6. [ii]             TNA, WO171-5177, p. 9. [iii]             TNA, WO171-5177, p. 14. [iv]             TNA, WO171-5177,...