Tintagel: The Birthplace of the Arthurian Legend, Merlin, Excalibur and the Knights of the Round Table

Hello again,

Whilst holidaying in Cornwall during July 2021, we visited Tintagel Castle, an English Heritage Site, on the North Western Coast of this wonderful English County.

The official English Heritage website can be found here:
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tintagel-castle/

It was a beautiful summers day with clear skies, we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Our son, in his late teens had been pestering to go and to be fair it is a place I have wanted to visit since being a child.

The nearby village of Trevena had a souvenir shop, so we took the opportunity to get a fancy pack of Tarot cards to thank our friend for caring for our cats. There was also a few cafe's so we had a bite and a brew.

But your not here for that info, you'll be wanting to see the pictures I suspect.

Tintagel was most likely once a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a small strip of land. This eventually eroded away effectively leaving a small island just off the coast.

This picture was taken standing on the mainland, looking onto the island, a sturdy bridge has been constructed to allow easy access to the island and the remains of the Castle.

As you can see the island is naturally fortified against attack and makes an ideal place to settle and defend yourself.

This picture was taken from the same location, but looking downwards, you can see a smaller bridge for the return journey. To the right of the picture you can see part of a beachy cove.

This cove allegedly contains Merlin's cave, however these caves in the distance are just that, caves. Merlin's Cave is to out of sight to the bottom left. Unfortunately we missed it.

On the opposite side is a treacherous looking rocky outcrop, I wouldn't like to be stood there in a storm!

This next picture illustrates just how difficult it would be to attack from the sea, with steep rugged cliffs to climb.

Moving onto the island we find a stone building with several rooms, which is just outside the main walls. The building seem to be gradually more damaged the closer we get to the castle wall.

These rooms used to form the core of the castle and would have been the hall and various service rooms.

Moving on we find the far wall of the castle, which compared to the rest of the walls - well I was going to say in pretty good shape, but lets face it, this is the only bit of wall left standing.

Peeking over the edge we get another angle on the sandy cove and the caves.

The sea is very clear and translucent, something I would expect to see in mainland Europe, not in the UK.

Here we can see the remnants of some out buildings, only a stone or two high now.

As we move around the rest of the island we see more evidence of out buildings, presumably homes or store houses. These were alleged to form part of a Dark Ages settlement following the collapse of Roman rule in England.

Looking back to the mainland from one of the highest points on the island.

The Castles Well is reported to be around 5 Metres deep and filled by local springs, not sure about you, but I don't like the look of the water.

Here we can make out the layout of a larger building, there is no record to show what it was used for.

This is recorded to be the ruins if the islands Chapel.

Finally, we are back to the Bridge looking down at the sandy Cove again, Merlin's Cave would be just to the left of this picture, so disappointed we missed it, but who knows we may visit again some day.

If you're interested in the story of Arthur Pendragon and the fables of the Knight's of the round table, Excalibur, Merlin, Guinevere, Mordred and much more there was an excellent BBC (TM) TV series called Merlin that's worth a watch.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1199099/

Thanks for taking the time to read through if you got this far.

@b8l - https://RisingStarGame
@onw - Splinterlands

All pictures were taken by myself and I tried to keep bystanders in the distance.