The Observer - 11.08.2019

The Observer

News 11.08.19 5

If you just put a few interventions very

carefully and sensitively ... you can get

people excited by history.”

Local enthusiasm for the bridge

appears to have slightly dampened.

“It looks like the golden gate in the

middle of a medieval ruin,” said one

resident. “It doesn’t exactly fi t, does

it?” But the structure, which uses

engineering honed in the Alps and

was designed in a competition won

by engineering fi rm Ney & Partners

and architects William Matthews , has

drummed up huge interest.

The 68- metre bridge will mean

visitors are no longer faced with

climbing 148 steps to get round the

popular tourist site. It is one of the

most ambitious, complicated and at

times controversial heritage projects

seen in Britain in recent years. But, as

it  opens, Mavor is battling to main-

tain  the organisation that made it

happen.

How will English Heritage credi-

bly survive? It’s an existential ques-

tion as much as a fi nancial one – the

charity has to become entirely self-

funding by 2023, when an £80m gov-

ernment grant runs out. Balancing

the need to draw in large numbers

A bridge too far at Tintagel? Not

according to English Heritage

The head of the charity

tells Nosheen Iqbal

why she rejects claims

that she is turning the

medieval castle into a

‘fairytale theme park’

It’s bold, it’s controversial , it’s a £3m
footbridge reuniting two ends of
a medieval castle that gave birth to
the myths of Merlin and King Arthur.
Today, after a delay caused by bad
weather , Tintagel Castle will fi nally
reopen to the public. Visitors will be
able to walk between the two ruins,
separated when the original land
bridge collapsed centuries ago.
The project has seen English

of people and stay true to the organ-

isation’s core purpose is the problem

Mavor faces every day.

“You won’t please everyone. We try

to stick to what we are for, and that

is bringing history to life and basing

everything on thorough research and

evidence,” she says.

Yet English Heritage, much like the

National Trust, has been accused of

enforcing a narrow and prescriptive

take on English history that has often

erased the contribution of women

and of black and Asian Britons. “To

be under-represented is something

we really understand,” said Mavor.

“We have started to address that and

are specifi cally looking for examples

of history that haven’t been told.”

She points to Portchester Castle in

Hampshire , which in the late 18th

century held over 2, 500 African

Caribbean prisoners of war.

The Rausing family, heirs to the

Tetra Pak fortune, donated £2.5m

to make the Tintagel project hap-

pen after it was mentioned to them

by English Heritage chairman Tim

Lawrence. “They were very excited by

it and they will give us further money

later in the year because they’re very

enthused by what we do ,” said Mavor.

New walkways have been intro-

duced along the cliffs and the excava-

tion has uncovered more pottery from

the Mediterranean than any other site

in Britain. Its curators say it was “a

party palace” for Richard, the fi rst Earl

of Cornwall , who owned 40 castles

across England in the 13th century.

Tintagel remained a triumph, said

Mavor. “Our millionth member signed

up to English Heritage , at Tintagel,

last year. We’re proving we can excite

and inspire people around history.”

LEFT

Visitors at

Tintagel Castle

in Cornwall.

English Heritage

BELOW

Kate Mavor on

the controversial

new bridge.

English Heritage

Heritage accused of “Disneyfying”

one of the most beautiful sites in

Britain, with the Cornwall Association

of Local Historians expressing out-

rage that the head of the wizard

Merlin has been carved into a rock

face – proof, for them, that the char-

ity has attempted to turn the site into

a “fairytale theme park” devoted to

the legend of King Arthur.

But this weekend, its chief execu-

tive , Kate Mavor , has hit back, deny-

ing the project is dumbing down

history. “It’s not Mount Rushmore.

[The Merlin carving] is really small

and actually really hard to fi nd,” she

told the Observer. “The generation

coming through now are constantly

stimulated by imagery, and if you just

write something down and say ‘read

this and then imagine’, it’s very hard.

nationalism the fi rst step is to stop
no-deal in its tracks.”
His comments come amid
mounting fears that a no-deal Brexit
would hasten the end of Scotland’s
membership of the UK. Three-fi fths

that, while the “starting point for any

conversations” should be that it is

led by Jeremy Corbyn, other options

should not be excluded. “There is

no time for parliamentary poker, no

time to bluff,” he writes. “You’re either

committed to stopping no-deal or

you’re not.

“I will give my full support to any

efforts to stop an undemocratic no-

deal – whether that be a general

election, taking control of the

parliamentary order paper, or even

a temporary government of national

unity, if, as many constitutional

experts are now saying, this is the

only way to stop Boris Johnson and

his catastrophic no-deal Brexit for

sure. The starting point for any

conversations about an alternative

government that can command the

confidence of parliament must be

that it would be led by Jeremy Corbyn

as the leader of the opposition and

by far the biggest party opposed to

no deal.”

The pleas from two of Labour’s

biggest beasts come after a week in

which anti no-deal MPs have been

unable to agree who should head a

temporary government if Johnson

were to lose a vote of no confi dence in

September. Rebels trying to stop no-

deal now regard an attempt to change

the law as the most likely fi rst avenue

explored to stop it going ahead.

Jean-Claude Juncker , the president

of the European Commission, warned

this weekend that Britain would be

the “big losers” from a no-deal out-

come. “If it comes to a hard Brexit, this

is in no one’s interest, but the British

would be the big losers,” he told the

Austrian paper Tiroler Tageszeitung.

of Scottish voters (60%) believe that

support for Scottish independence

would increase after a no-deal Brexit,

according to new Focaldata polling

for the anti-racist Hope Not Hate

campaign. Most Tory supporters said

they regarded the end of the union as

a price worth paying to achieve Brexit.

Some 57% of supporters agreed with

this view, in a separate UK-wide poll

of 3,200 adults for Hope Not Hate.

Brown’s demand for action comes

as Sadiq Khan , the London mayor,

becomes the most senior Labour fi g-

ure to call on his party to consider

backing a national-unity government

to stop no-deal Brexit. He suggests

Brown: No deal

spells calamity

for the union

‘You won’t please

everyone. We try

to stick to what we

are for – bringing

history to life’

Kate Mavor, chief executive

Continued from page 1

Gordon Brown

believes a no-deal

Brexit would tear

apart the UK.

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