The town of Bodmin lies in the centre of Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, along the western edge of Bodmin Moor. St. Petroc founded a priory here in the 6th century; he gave the alternate name to Bodmin which is Petrockstow. In the 15th century the church of St. Petroc was built and stands as the largest church in Cornwall. For most of Bodmin's history, the tin industry was a mainstay of the economy.
It has been suggested that the town's name comes from an archaic word in the Cornish "bod" (meaning a dwelling; the later word is "bos") and a contraction of "menegh" (monks). This speculation is both unproven and unprovable since the name is also thought to predate the institution of the monastery which is popularly supposed to support it; it may however refer to an earlier monastic settlement instituted by St. Guron , which St. Petroc took as his site.