A couple believe they’ve captured footage of a “big cat” roaming the grounds of a well-known West Country manor house and gardens. They say that it was no ordinary ‘house cat’.

The video, taken last Sunday (August 4) around 7.20pm, shows a black figure moving across the grass at Lanhydrock House, near Bodmin St Neot in Cornwall. The woman who filmed the incident, from St Austell, said it even startled the local deer causing them to “bolt”.

Gemma Smith, who was with her partner Jamie Williamson and their children at the time, said: "Doesn’t look like your average house cat… could it be? ! " She added: "We were halfway up from the manor house and even from that distance you could see it was a big cat.

“Funnily we did spot a pair of deer down from the manor house on our way up and the female kept looking in that direction and then bolted and her partner followed.” She said her phone let her down though and the images came out of poor quality.

Footage - which you can see at the top of this page - shows what they believe was a bigger-than-average black cat stalking about the National Trust property, seeming to fit the description of the Beast of Bodmin Moor.