Fine Wine
a promontory, not an island, but never
mind). You had to clamber down the cliff
and up again, along a steep and narrow stair-
case: perfectly safe, but tough going for kids
and oldies. Now anyone can get across in a
few minutes. I thought this modern bridge
would be an eyesore but the graceful design
is unobtrusive. By uniting the two sides of
the castle it actually completes the view.
Originally the adjacent town was called
Trevena, but when tourism took off it
became known as Tintagel, after the cas-
tle. The town is full of gift shops hawking
all sorts of Arthurian tat, closer to Monty
Python and the Holy Grail than Excalibur.
No matter. Even in Medieval times, Tinta-
gel was a work of fiction. Like the bridge,
these tacky souvenirs are part of its complex
history — the story of how a real place
became the location for a legend.
And despite the knick-knacks and the
traffic jams, some of Tintagel’s old magic
endures. As I walked up the hill towards the
car park, past shops selling Cornish fudge
and Cornish pasties, I stopped to catch my
breath and looked back at the castle, silhou-
etted against the sky. Did King Arthur ever
live here? Probably not. But this is still a
special place, where an awful lot has hap-
pened. If only I believed in Merlin, I might
like it even more.H
alfway across the brand new bridge
that links the two halves of Tintagel
Castle, there’s a gap where you can
look down at the waves crashing on the
rocks below. Don’t worry; it’s only a few
inches wide so there’s no danger of falling
through it. But it’s a thrilling reminder that
you’re suspended between an island and the
mainland; between the present and the past.
Like a lot of places in Cornwall, Tinta-
gel has a complicated history. It was a big
settlement during the Dark Ages, bigger
than London at the time, and very well con-
nected with the lands around the Med. More
Mediterranean pottery has been found here
than anywhere else in Britain. Why was
Tintagel so important? No one seems sure.
Those Mediterranean sailors may have been
coming for tin, but they could have found it
elsewhere in Cornwall.
By the Middle Ages, Tintagel was a ruin,
and it might have remained so if a medieval
hack called Geoffrey of Monmouth hadn’t
written a racy book called The History of
the Kings of Britain. Some of the stuff he
wrote was fairly accurate, but the bit about
Tintagel was pretty fanciful. For some
reason he decided it was the place where
King Arthur was born, inspiring Richard of
Cornwall (the younger brother of Henry III,
and one of the richest men in England) tobuild a new castle on the site, straddling the
narrow isthmus that linked the old settle-
ment to the mainland.
For several centuries Richard’s castle was
party central, a place for knights to enjoy
some R’n’R, but then the isthmus collapsed
and Tintagel became a ruin again, forgot-
ten until Tennyson put it on the tourist trail.
Sightseers came here in search of Camelot
and though they only found a heap of rub-
ble the location is spectacular, surrounded
by jagged rocks and open water.
Before English Heritage built this foot-
bridge you had to be quite fit to reach the
part of the castle on the island (technicallyIn search of Camelot: The new
and old footbridgesNOTES ON ...
Tintagel
By William Cook
GETTY IMAGES