We started to the rough northern coast of Cornwall today.
We drove to the Carnewas & Bedruthan Steps, over Truro and Newquay.This is powerful lumps of rock in the sea. The way leads across some steep steps down to the sea.
The weather was marvellous but an improbably stronger one, cold wind.

Bedruthan Steps became a popular destination when Newquay developed as a holiday resort 100 years ago. Victorian visitors in their carriages found it a convenient attraction, and the local farmer responded to this interest by providing stalls for the horses on payment of the following tolls: ls for a one-horse, 2s for a two-horse, and 4s for a four-horse vehicle. Pedestrians had nothing to pay.
There is an awesome nobility about the view across the famous wave-swept stacks. The low, unspoilt plateau of Park Head beyond the dramatic foreground effectively closes the panorama to the north.Man seems to have had little influence on this scene, but along 2 miles of this exciting coastline are six Bronze Age barrows, two Iron Age cliff castles and a nineteenth century iron mine.The power of earth's natural forces is uppermost in the onlooker's mind. The outline of the stacks has changed in living memory, and the cliffs are constantly slipping into the sea so that to walk too near the edge is a hazardous undertaking.




Bedruthan Steps


The legend of a giant called Bedruthan using the beach stacks as stepping stones or 'steps' to achieve a not very obvious short cut across the bay seems to be a late nineteenth century invention trotted out to gullible tourists. No early reference to the story has been
found, and the truth is probably more prosaic.
The first record of the name 'Bedruthan Steps' is in The West Briton of February 1847 and is likely to refer to the original cliff staircase.
• We suggest that the placename 'Bedruthan Steps' was originally given to the actual staircase, but has since been applied to the whole beach, and especially to the distinctive stacks. This is not an original idea. J. R. A. Hockin in his respected book Walking in Cornwall (1936) was unsure of the derivation of the name. He wrote:
'... there is no general agreement as to what Bedruthan Steps actually are, whether the name refers to the great stacks of detached cliff — the giant's stepping stones — or to the older and damper of the two rock stairways down to the beach.'
Old postcards exist which show the present cliff staircase as being 'Carnewas Steps'. A zig-zag route, slightly to the north, also appears on old postcards, and traces remain on the ground, but most of this route has been lost by rockfalls and landslips.In 1910, Charles G. Harper wrote in The Cornish Coast:'Rude flights of steps, cut in the profile of the cliffs, and fortified here and there by a crazy iron or timber hand-rail, lead to the shore ... The steps are ancient beyond
knowledge, and have given a name to the place'.Just north of Diggory's Island there was a beach access path called Pentire Steps. This was a zig-zag route to the beach, but the bottom section has been carried away.In the 1960s and early 1970s the beach was closed as no safe route was possible because of the crumbling rock. In 1973 a generous benefactor gave the Trust £25,000 to enable the old cliff staircase to be rebuilt down the consolidated cliff. However, by 1990 further fragmentation of the cliff made it necessary to dose the staircase again. In 1995 it was re-opened following stabilisation work and the rebuilding of the bottom 20ft of the staircase which had been washed away. The project was made possible by the generous contribution of design expertise and materials by Wimpey Engineering and Construction and funds raised by local public appeal.

THE MUTS AND THE STACKS

Cornwall may very roughly be described as a 'sea' of slate from which 'islands' of granite protrude. The term slate is here used to describe a variety of rocks laid down as sediments, probably at least 300 million years ago. In the north-east of the county good roofing slates are found, but far more common are the compressed and hardened muds loosely called slates but named killas by Cornish geologists. This is the kind of rock found at Bedruthan.
Close inspection of the geology reveals that the rocks have been subjected to unimaginable pressures since they hardened, so contorted and folded are they. The stacks which are such a special feature of Bedruthan Beach are caused by the differential weathering of the rocks, an action best illustrated by a series of simplified sketches (below). The sea attacks the softer, weaker rocks, the friction of pebbles and sand adds to the erosion, as does the energy of air compressed in the back of caves. RaM and frost also play a part.
At Bedruthan the timescale of change can be measured against a human life span. Apart from frequent land-. slips, there is the stack known for hundreds of years as the Queen Bess (or Elizabeth) Rock for the very good reason that it bore a resemblance to the Virgin Queen when seen from further up the beach at low tide — crown, ruff, farthingale and all. It lost its distinctive top in the early 1980s, making thousands of postcards and photographs out of date at a stroke!
The tip of Park Head is greenstone, a much harder rock than the killas, and a kind of green basalt, an igneous rock. Its resistance to erosion is why it sticks out from the rest of the coastline; headlands are invariably made of tougher material.

Then drove toTintageland went there to "The Old Post Office"- built at 1895.


The Old Post Office, Tintagel


Tintagel was a tiny and remote hamlet when this building was first put up in the 14th century. It hugs the ground closely, as it is exposed to the full fury of Atlantic gales. The floor plan suggests that it was a small-scale manor house, perhaps home to the owner of the manor of Trevena, which today is covered by the village of Tintagel. It is a precious survival of such an early domestic dwelling in the extreme south- west corner of England.
Over the centuries the roof has gradually subsided under the weight of the massive slates, until it now looks distinctly tipsy. And over the centuries Tintagel has grown around the building. By 1841 the population was 1,185, and the village needed its own Post office, which was established here three years later. Set into the outside wall of the left-hand end of the house is an 1857 letter collection box as a reminder of those days. A Victorian post room has also been re- created inside.

In 1848 the poet Tennyson spent a wet June day among the ruins of Tintagel Castle seeking the spirit of King Arthur. His Arthurian poems helped to make the place famous, but also threatened to destroy it.
In the late 19th century almost all of the old village was torn down to provide for the influx of new visitors. The Old Post Office might have gone the same way in 1895, if a group of local people had not resolved to save it. Thanks in particular to Catherine Johns, the Old Post Office was rescued from destruction and handed over to the National Trust in 1903.

The Building

The Old Post Office is built of the local brown slate (long since weathered to an even grey) and the occasional piece of granite. Granite was also used for the heavy arch over the entrance doorway and local greenstone for the window surrounds. The walls are between 75 and ioocm thick, but despite their massive construction, have had to be buttressed at the back to support the immense weight of the stone roof slates, which came from nearby Cliff Quarry.The stout chimneystacks, the main one in three stages, are provided with slate drips and stepped slate facings, and are capped with the local pattern of chimney- pot consisting of four slates set on edge.These features were once common in north Cornwall, but are fast disappearing.
The plan is typical of many late medieval manor houses, with a central single-storey hall open to the roof, flanked by smaller service rooms and a kitchen (now the Parlour), with bedrooms above. In spite of its small scale, the house is surprisingly spacious.
The building came to the National Trust empty of contents, and since then the rooms have been furnished with things from farmhouses and cottages in the vicinity. The furniture is nearly all of oak, which until recently was commonly found in this part of Cornwall.
A small collection of needlework samplers is being assembled in some of the rooms. These small embroidered panels, the earliest here dating from the mid-18th century, were usually worked by girls in coloured silks on a linen ground, and incorporate stylised birds and flowers, the letters of the alphabet and short moral or religious texts. They were usually signed and dated by the embroiderer.

Tour of the House

The Entrance Passage


The house is entered from the street through a porch, on either side of which is a stone bench. The entrance passage, known as an 'entry' in Cornwall, runs through to the garden behind and is comparable to the screens passage in a grander building.
The door to the right leads into the Parlour.

The Parlour
Originally, this was probably the kitchen, although there are ovens beside each of the hearths in the rooms on the ground floor.

In the dresser to the right of the hearth is displayed the Bossiney Borough tea service, together with the Borough glass, now reduced to a decanter and three wine glasses. Bossiney is a hamlet adjoining Tintagel to the east, and was notorious in the i8th and early i9th centuries as being possibly the most rotten of all the rotten Parliamentary boroughs of England. For nearly 300 years it sent two MPs to Westminster and continued to do so at

a time when Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other great towns created by the Industrial Revolution were not represented there at all. Bossiney had few MPs of emi- nence, and only Sir Francis Drake, who was one of the Borough Members from 1584 to 1586, is remembered today. There were never many voters and in 1784 only one remained, Arthur Wade, who duly returned two MPs. As well as the Windsor chairs, there is a longcase clock made by Nathaniel Voyce of Mitcheldean in Gloucestershire about 1830, but in an earlier case. The four samplers were all sewn by young girls: Elisabeth Smith, aged fifteen in 1837; Frances Rowley (with the Lord's Prayer) in 1768; Eliza Shenton, aged fifteen, at much the same date; and Mary Ann Thompson, aged twelve, (with its delightful house) in 1834.

From the Parlour a narrow steep stair leads up to the North Bedroom.

The North Bedroom

The room is now furnished with a simple iron bedstead and oak and pine furniture. There are three further samplers here, one worked by Caroline Cull, aged eleven in 1832, another by Eliza Hutchins in 1822, and a large alphabet sampler, which was sewn by Elizabeth and Mary Knapp,born in 1803 and 1804 respectively. Such exercises were useful training for girls going into service, who would be required to embroider laundry marks on the domestic linens.A subsidiary stair, almost a ladder made of slate slabs set into the thickness of the wall, leads to the 'Gallery' overlooking the Hall. This was never a minstrels' gallery of the type found in larger manor houses, but may originally have been a small separate bedroom lit by die tiny window in the front wall of the house and divided from the Hall by a wall made of timber studding and plaster.

Descending the stairs to the Entrance Passage, the visitor may step into the garden at the rear of the building.

The Garden
Now on two levels, the garden remains a pleasant spot, despite the very exposed
Position which the building occupies. The well is conveniently situated close to the back door. The semicircular projection towards the east end of this elevation encloses a spiral staircase. A tiny window which lights this staircase is hewn out of a single piece of local greenstone, probably from Polyphant, near Launceston.

Re-entering the building, the visitor turns right into the Hall.


The Hall
This rises the full height of the house to the smoke-blackened rafters and has changed little since medieval times. The brackets on either side of the hearth are narrow, high and boldly shaped; they support a large slate overmantel, some 25ocm by I20CM high.
The handsome lacquer cased clock by Oliver Smith of London was made in the mid-i8th century. Because of a government tax imposed on private docks in 1797, these large dial docks, which were often found in inns or taverns, are often known as Act of Parliament clocks.

At the far corner of the room, a doorway leads to a spiral staircase, and visitors are warned not to bump their heads against the low lintels. The staircase leads into a further bedchamber.

The South Bedroom
Of particular interest is the two-light window to the village street. It is impossible to date precisely but cannot be later than the early part of the i6th century. The oak bed, from a farmhouse on Bodmin Moor, has a feather tie (mattress) supported upon ropes threaded criss-cross through its frame. The three samplers in this room were worked by Sapience J. Lethbridge, aged nine in 1833, Elisabeth Palmer, aged twelve in 1813, and Ann Toms, aged ten (undated).

Returning down the stairs, turn right into

The Post Room

This room has been furnished as a Victorian village post office, with postal and telegraph equipment located behind the counter. The nearest telegraph office had been at

Boscastle, three miles to the north and a busy port throughout the i9th century, but by 1890 the telegraph wires had been brought to Tintagel. A Spagnoletti receiver and undulator of the type beside the counter would have been operated here by the Sub- Postmaster, Mr Balkwill.

The Post comes to Tintagel



In the early i9th century, letters for Tintagel had to be picked up from Camelford, five miles away to the south- west. The increase in postal traffic following Sir Rowland Hill's introduction of Penny Postage in 1840 led to the improvement of postal services in remote country places like Tintagel. By 1844 the parish was generating 125 letters a week, and so in that year the General Post Office decided to establish a Letter Receiving Office for the district. It chose Trevena as the most central of the several scattered villages and hamlets comprising the large parish of Tintagel.
A room was rented from the owner of the old manor house and the Letter Receiving Office set up. From the 187os it was run by William Cobbledick Balkwill, who was also the local draper and grocer. He was soon doing good business.

The Arthurian Legend

In the late i9th century tourism reached Tintagel. Visitors were drawn not only by the spectacular coastal scenery around Barras Nose, but also by the romance of Tintagel's legendary past. Tennyson's Idylls of the King made Tintagel famous as the birthplace of King Arthur. For Matthew Arnold it was on loud Tyntagel's hill high above the sounding sea' that Tristram and Iseult, his 'youthful knight' and 'princess bright', lay buried.

The Old Post Office under Threat

The result of this popularity can be seen in the village of Tintagel and its surroundings today. Many old cottages were torn down

and replaced by guest-houses, shops and hotels, the largest of which, King Arthur's Castle Hotel, still stands at the bottom of the village street on the edge of the cliffs.Few of the picturesque buildings of the old village survived this onslaught, and in 1892 the owner of the Old Post Office decided to sell it for redevelopment and gave notice to the GPO, which moved its business across the street. By 1895 the building had become virtually derelict and was put up for auction.


Saving the Old Post Office


A group of local artists, who had loved the village as it was, became concerned at the threat to the Old Post Office. One ofthem, Catherine Johns, decided to act. 'Of a most hospitable and large-hearted nature,' according to her obituary, `she was never so content as when entertaining her numerous friends and neighbours.' She bought the building for £300 on the understanding that means would be found to preserve it. Sales of prints after pictures by several well- known artists were held in 1896 to raise money at the studio of Helen Thorneycroft. Shortly afterwards the fabric was carefully repaired by the leading Ans and Crafts architect Detmar Blow according to the strict principles laid down by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
In 1900 the National Trust agreed to buy the building from Miss Johns for a nominal £200, which was raised by public appeal. The purchase was subject to a lease to Miss Johns for her lifetime and the building was finally vested in the Trust in 1903.

After almost another century of Cornish gales, the Old Post Office again required attention. In 1992 it was discovered that many of the beams under the ancient roof were rotten and needed replacement. A local firm of builders took off the original slates, renewed or repaired the affected beams, and then replaced them. The roof now looks much as it did before, with the many undulations carefully retained. The cost of the work was partially met by generous grants from English Heritage and Delabole Slate, a division of RTZ Mining and Exploration Ltd.

After that we visit to the Tintagel Castle - the legend after the castle of King Arthur,
It was a loveley walk at the Coast Path to the castle.

Tintagel Castle

Tour and Description
The Entrance to Tintagel - 1


This is the best place to start your tour of this part of Tintagel whether you have come here first or have already been across the bridge and onto the Island.

The castle of Tintagel lies on a finger of land projecting into the sea from the flat plateau of North Cornwall. Half of the castle is here on the mainland; the other part is reached bywalking over a narrow neck of land between two inlets of the sea.
For hundreds of years, those whose business lay with the sea took die track down along die valley bottom to die Haven. However, those who sought the castle made their way across the plateau or along the edge of the valley to this point, as the only way into the castle was along the narrow path in front of you.

The First Tintagel

This pattern of access was set long before the medieval castle was built, when Tintagel was the stronghold of a Cornish king or prince — or even before that, when Tintagel was just a small settlement on the very edge of the Roman Empire.
The way into Tintagel is dominated by the high crag of rock on your led. A small village or hamlet was apparently established on the headland beyond, some time in the third or fourth century AD. It may not have had formal
defences, but this crag would allow anyone who lived here at that time to control the only safe approach to their home.
We know very little about this settlement;

we do not even know its Cornish name. However it is possibly the place that the Romans called Durocornovium — the fortress of die Cornovii, who inhabited this part of Britain at that time.

The Dark Age Stronghold


Some time in the fifth or sixth century AD, the Great Ditch to your right was dug out along die line of a natural fault in the ground caused by movements in the earth's crust many millions of years ago. The soil and rock from this ditch were piled along the far side of the ditch to form an earth wall. This was probably strengthened by adding a stone wall or wooden palisade, turning Tintagel into a fortress of great strength.To attack this place, an army would have had to work its way along the steep slopes below you, or concentrate its attack on the cramped path between the ditch and the high crag.

Whether such an attack ever did take place is not clear, but die narrowness of the approach was apparently sufficient to give the stronghold the name by which it has become famous — Din Tagell, the Fortress of die Narrow Entrance.



The Medieval Castle

In 1233, Ear! Richard of Cornwall acquired Tintagel — by then long deserted and probably already a place of legends.
The ruined Dark Age defences were replaced with a strong stone wall, confronting friends and enemies alike with a barrier blocking off all sight of what lay beyond. Today, die stonework is ragged and time-worn, but when first built it would have been rendered and possibly whitened with lime. It would have stood out clearly in the landscape, marking the castle of a powerful nobleman.
At each end of the wall there was originally a square tower — a small one to your right, of which only the foundations remain, and a larger one straight in front of you, protecting the gate into the castle. In front of the gate tower was a long narrow approach passage, flanked by the crag on one side and a high wall on the other. In the event of an attack, this passage formed an easy killing-ground for defenders on top of die battlemented gate tower.
Visitors to the castle would have passed under a stone arch in the gate tower. When closed, the great wooden doors could be locked by long bars of timber: to open the doors, the bars were slid back into two large stone channels at the side of the arch. The smaller holes were for the wooden scaffolding used when the castle was being built.

The First Tintagel

This pattern of access was set long before the medieval castle was built, when Tintagel was the stronghold of a Cornish king or prince — or even before that, when Tintagel was just a small settlement on the very edge of the Roman Empire.
The way into Tintagel is dominated by the high crag of rock on your led. A small village or hamlet was apparently established on the headland beyond, some time in the third or fourth century AD. It may not have had formal
defences, but this crag would allow anyone who lived here at that time to control the only safe approach to their home.
We know very little about this settlement;

we do not even know its Cornish name. However it is possibly the place that the Romans called Durocornovium — the fortress of die Cornovii, who inhabited this part of Britain at that time.

The Dark Age Stronghold


Some time in the fifth or sixth century AD, the Great Ditch to your right was dug out along die line of a natural fault in the ground caused by movements in the earth's crust many millions of years ago. The soil and rock from this ditch were piled along the far side of the ditch to form an earth wall. This was probably strengthened by adding a stone wall or wooden palisade, turning Tintagel into a fortress of great strength.To attack this place, an army would have had to work its way along the steep slopes below you, or concentrate its attack on the cramped path between the ditch and the high crag.

Whether such an attack ever did take place is not clear, but die narrowness of the approach was apparently sufficient to give the stronghold the name by which it has become famous — Din Tagell, the Fortress of die Narrow Entrance.



The Medieval Castle

In 1233, Ear! Richard of Cornwall acquired Tintagel — by then long deserted and probably already a place of legends.
The ruined Dark Age defences were replaced with a strong stone wall, confronting friends and enemies alike with a barrier blocking off all sight of what lay beyond. Today, die stonework is ragged and time-worn, but when first built it would have been rendered and possibly whitened with lime. It would have stood out clearly in the landscape, marking the castle of a powerful nobleman.
At each end of the wall there was originally a square tower — a small one to your right, of which only the foundations remain, and a larger one straight in front of you, protecting the gate into the castle. In front of the gate tower was a long narrow approach passage, flanked by the crag on one side and a high wall on the other. In the event of an attack, this passage formed an easy killing-ground for defenders on top of die battlemented gate tower.
Visitors to the castle would have passed under a stone arch in the gate tower. When closed, the great wooden doors could be locked by long bars of timber: to open the doors, the bars were slid back into two large stone channels at the side of the arch. The smaller holes were for the wooden scaffolding used when the castle was being built.

Climb the stairs against the cliff face to the upper courtyard on top of the crag.

Like die courtyard from which you have just come, this courtyard was once much larger. If you look at die high wall on your left, you can see how it curves round and stops abruptly at the edge of die cliff. Perhaps as much as half of the courtyard has collapsed into the sea. The straight wall along die cliff edge was added later in die Middle Ages, after the cliff-fall. Once, it was as high as die other wall, but it too is now falling away, piece by piece.The sheer cliff did have one advantage — it offered a convenient way of getting rid of unwanted waste. In the curtain wall are the remains of two latrines (toilets) which emptied over the edge of the cliff. The one in the furthest corner of the courtyard was enclosed in a small tower which projected out from the wall. Nearby, you can see the remains of a flight of steps leading up to where the roof of this tower used to be. (Do not climb the steps — there is a sheer cliff on the other side!)
The group of stone-floored rooms where you entered this courtyard was built in the later Middle Ages; they may have replaced earlier accommodation lost when the cliff collapsed. The lower grass-topped walls, however, may be much earlier. They could be the remains of buildings from a time before either of the present courtyard walls were built, because they have a quite different alignment. They may even have been part of the Dark Age stronghold, re-used when the castle was built.

Return to the lower courtyard.

Go to the far end of the courtyard and look down.You can see how Tintagel really does fall into two parts, connected by a narrow neck of land. Today, there is a wooden bridge which makes it easier to reach the steps leading up onto the Island.
Once there would have been a high battle- mented wall closing off the castle courtyard opposite you on the Island, possibly with a gate tower at the top of die steps. Parts of a wall still survived in 1583, when the Cornish landowner and sea-captain, Sir Richard Grenville, surveyed Tintagel to see whether it needed to be made safe against Spanish attack. Fairly soon after that, however, the wall collapsed; the one you can see now was built in the 1850s, as near as possible to where the original wall had been.

From here, there are two ways you can go. The steep steps in front of you will take you down to the bridge. If you would prefer a gentler path, or if you have already been across the bridge to the Island and have finished your visit, go out through the ruined gate tower behind you and down the zig-zag path w the shop and exhibition.


The Bridge 2

This wooden bridge is the only link between the mainland and what is known as The Island'. If you have come here first, you may find it best to go onto the Island now. You can visit the Mainland Courtyards of the castle, if you have time, on your way back.

If you haven't visited the Mainland Courtyards yet, you may find it helpful to look at pages 2-4 of this guidebook now. These explain the background to what you will find on the Island.
The bridge was built in the 1970s to replace an earlier path and set of steps which had become very dangerous. If you look to your left as you cross the bridge, you will see some of the old steps — the rest have fallen into the sea.
This western inlet is open to die worst storms. Crevices in the rock have been opened up by the powerful action of the waves: many of the great boulders on the beach came from where you are standing now. By contrast, the sandy eastern inlet, known as the Haven, is much more sheltered. In calm weather seals can be seen in the waters round Tintagel.

In the fifth and sixth centuries AD, when Tintagel was used as a stronghold by the kings or princes of Dumnonia — a kingdom comprising Cornwall, Devon and parts of Somerset — the link between the mainland and the Island must have been much wider and higher than it is today. It may have looked more like the narrow part of Barras Nose, the headland that you can see across the other side of the sandy Haven. At
that time the mainland and the Island fortried one big area bounded on three sides by the sea. This is why the outer defences of the stronghold were set further inland, where the Mainland Courtyards of die castle were later built.
By 1233, when Earl Richard built his castle, the neck of land joining the mainland to the Island must already have been eroded by die sea. There must always have been a low narrow saddle between the two separate parts of the castle.


The Island Courtyard - 3

The battlemented wall at the top of the steps from the bridge was built by the local vicar, Richard Kinsman, in 1852, when Tintagel was becoming a popular tourist destination. It replaced the original wall built in the thirteenth century to defend die Island Courtyard from attack from the mainland.
This inner courtyard — the heart of the medieval castle — was once larger. Part of it has fallen down the cliff behind you, taking with it part of the courtyard wall and one end of die Great Hall built for Earl Richard in about 1235.When Earl Richard first came here he would

have found a grassy hollow with shallow terraces and possibly the tumbled remains of earlier buildings. To make space to build his Great Hall, he built a strong retaining wall around the lower edge of the hollow and tipped in three metres of soil and stone to level the ground, burying any Dark Age remains.
On this new platform he built his Great Hall - the main reception room of the castle, where all formal business would be conducted and where the Earl could impress his guests with lavish hospitality. A kitchen, buttery (for serving drink) and pantry (for serving food) must have been built close by, though we don't know where: perhaps they were in the part of the courtyard that vanished when the cliff edge collapsed.

All this put a huge strain on the retaining wall supporting the Hall, and large buttresses were hastily applied to its outer face to stop it sliding down the grassy slope into the sea. At the same time, a new set of service rooms was built at the far end of the Hall. Some time later, two projecting latrines were added — one for the service rooms and one for the Hall.Opposite die new service rooms, and backed against the steep grass slope, are the remains of a two-roomed building with a flight of steps up the nearer wall to where there was once an upper floor. This may have been a private chamber, intended for the use of the Earl on his rare visits to Tintagel.

In spite of his early enthusiasm for Tintagel, Earl Richard cannot have come here very often, and, after his death in 1272, his buildings fell into disrepair. In the early fourteenth century, die roof of the Hall was dismantled for safety reasons, and at some point a new two-storey house was built within the walls of the ruined Hall. This may have been for the resident

Constable who was responsible for die security of die castle.

Walk through the archway in the battlemented wall at the far end of the courtyard. Outside, a path to your right leads down to the Iron Gate, a defended rock-wharf where ships could be tied-up in calm weather.This path is a cul-de-sac: if you visit the Iron Gate you will have to climb back up again to this point.The path ahead leads up to the top of the Island


The Dark Age Houses 4

From this rock outcrop, the full drama of Tintagel's setting becomes clear. Its savage landscape of contorted rocks, sea-caves and narrow sandy inlets has always attracted visitors. The large castle-like building on the headland opposite is a hotel built in the 1890s in anticipation of a railway line intended to bring visitors in even greater numbers.
Looking back the way you have just come, beyond the castle's Island Courtyard, you can see the two Mainland Courtyards of the medieval castle perched on top of a sheer cliff which rises from the boulder-strewn sea shore. Below you is the defended wharf known as the Iron Gate and the sandy beach of the Haven.

The Ruined Houses

Along the sheltered sloping side of the Island are four small groups of ruined buildings, their low walls topped with grass, heather and wildflowers. Perched on steep slopes among rocky outcrops, they are connected by narrow paths and steps.If you had come here before the 1930s, you would hardly have recognised them as buildings at all. At that time they were still completely covered by grass and heather, with just a few ridges and hollows to suggest that something interesting was buried under the ground. During the 1930s, a programme of excavation uncovered some of the more obvious buildings. Today, we know that there are probably the remains of dozens more still waiting to be found — a complete village, strung along the hillside.The work of uncovering the buildings in the 1930s was not done os we would do it now, and most of the records of the work have been lost. The unmortared walls were in a very poor state and had to be rebuilt to withstand wind and
ram. It is very difficult, all these years later, to be entirely sure about how old the various buildings are, or what they were used for.
More recent investigations have shown that the first buildings on this side of the Island were put up around the beginning of the fifth century AD. They were made largely of wood and seem to have been rather flimsy. They may have been used as temporary accommodation, or possibly just as work-huts and store-sheds. However, the buildings investigated and rebuilt in the 1930s seem to have been larger and much more solid, with low walls of unmortared stone. They may have been actual houses, used for longer periods of occupation.

Scattered through the remains of all these buildings were broken pieces of wine-jars, plates, dishes and glass vessels brought fromSpain, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. Similar pieces have been found at other coastal sites in Western Britain, but nowhere has as much been found as at Tintagel. Only someone very powerful — perhaps
a king or a prince — could have arranged for the importation of these luxury items from what remained of the old Roman Empire.
This may explain why such efforts were made to protect the approach to Tintagel in the Dark Ages, turning the headland into a coastal stronghold overlooking a natural haven where trading ships could be beached for unloading.
It is difficult to imagine a king or a prince living in any of the small houses and sheds discovered so far. Presumably they lived somewhere nearby. There may have been a royal hall on top of the Island. Alternatively, it may have stood in the sheltered hollow which later became the Inner Courtyard of Earl Richard's castle, where small-scale excavations have revealed Dark Age remains.

The soil of Tintagel still has many secrets to give up. Indeed, the whole site is a storehouse of information about the little- known period after the Roman administration collapsed, when Angles and Saxons flooded into the eastern parts of the old Imperial province and powerful new native kingdoms were established in Western Britain.

From here the path leads up to the top of the Island, where there is a well, an abandoned medieval garden, a tunnel and a chapel. There are also some of the most superb coastal views in Cornwall.

On Top of the World

The Garden - 5

This small walled area seems to have been laid out in the Middle Ages as a garden. Gardens played an important part in aristocratic life, as can be seen from the vivid pictures of them in medieval books. It was in walled gardens that the gentler and more sophisticated episodes of courtly life took place: books were read, poetry was recited and the latest songs were sung. If Earl Richard wanted his Countess to entertain the wives and daughters of his Cornish supporters, then a walled garden would have been required here at Tintagel, where tales could be told of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, or the ill- fated lovers Tristan and Yseult.However, the idea of an all-year-round garden here is absurd to anyone who has visited Tintagel in the winter, when the top of the Island is gale-lashed and drenched with salt spray. So, since the Earl and the Countess must have visited Tintagel only rarely, the garden may have been recreated from scratch on each occasion, elaborate wooden arbours being hastily built to take potted flowers and shrubs brought from more sheltered places on the mainland.

The Northern Ruins - 6

The ruined buildings here were uncovered in the 1930s and their date and purpose are still some- thing of a mystery. Some of the buildings may be as old as the fifth or sixth century AD, like those on the eastern slopes of the Island. Others may be medieval in date; one has a small oven for drying corn. Perhaps this was a summer settlement,built on top of earlier foundations and used in the Middle Ages when the top of the Island was grazed by sheep between visits by its noble owners.
The little building nearest the cliff edge may be the remains of a small gun-house, erected
in the 1580s against possible Spanish attack in the light of the recommendations made by Sir Richard Grenville in the years before the coming of the Spanish Armada.

The Tunnel - 7

No-one really knows for what purpose this short length of tunnel was dug, and many suggestions have been made. The most likely of these is that it may have been dug in the Middle Ages as a long narrow larder for the castle — built this shape in order to economise on roofing materials. There was apparently
once a door at the end nearer the sea. With this open, the cooling wind from the sea would help preserve food in the summer heat.

The Well - 8

The shallow depression on the top of the Island is the only natural water-catchment at Tintagel and several natural springs run from it. The well is medieval in date and must have been the main source of water for the castle, apart from any water collected from the roofs of the buildings.Today, the well is an essential part of the Island's fire-fighting arrangements. Nearby, a pile of stones conceals a mechanical pump. If fire breaks out, as it did in 1983, water from this well will be used to put it out.

From the Well, you can cross to the Southern Cliffs (Waymark 9) or go directly to the Chapel (Waymark 10). From there you can return easily to the Inner Courtyard and back down the steps to the Bridge.



The Southern Cliffs - 9

If Tintagel was indeed the stronghold of a Dark Age king or prince of Dumnonia, then this area on top of the Island may have played an important part in ceremonies when his noble ancestry was proclaimed, his power was demonstrated and oaths of loyalty were given. Such occasions demanded displays of feasting and gift-giving, and this would account for the huge amount of luxury goods from the Mediterranean area found here at Tintagel.
It may not be too fanciful, therefore, to think that on these occasions a king or prince of Dumnonia may have stood here, facing his followers. Standing with his back to the sea, the grave mounds of his ancestors would have been visible behind him on the mainland skyline, around what is now Tintagel parish church.


The Chapel - 10

This tiny chapel, dedicated to St Juliot, seems to have been built around the end of the eleventh century, a time when the old Dark Age stronghold had long been abandoned and the castle had not yet been started. Even after the castle was built, this must have been the main place of Christian worship on the Island. The reason for building an isolated chapel here in the eleventh century is something of a mystery — there was already a small church nearby on the mainland, close to the present parish church.
The chapel was a simple building, its chancel divided from the nave by a wooden screen. Originally, the entrance was by a door in the south-west corner. In the thirteenth century, when the chapel was used by people from the new castle, this door was blocked up and the entrance was moved to the west end and covered by a small porch or tower.

Around the chapel are more low stone walls topped with grass. These are all that remain of quite a large complex of buildings of various dates — some Dark Age and some medieval. One of these buildings was used as the foundation for the chapel. Was it adopted just because it was a convenient shape, or could it too have been used for Christian worship, several centuries earlier when the Dark Age stronghold was in use?

From here, the path along the cliff edge towards the mainland leads you back down some steps to the Island Courtyard and on down to the
Bridge. When you reach the Bridge, you can go on to visit the two Mainland Courtyards of the castle, if you haven't already done so. To reach them, either climb the steep steps in front of you, or take the longer but gentler path that starts behind the Shop. Either route will take you to Waymark 1 where the description of the Mainland Courtyards begins.

The Chapel 10

This tiny chapel, dedicated to St Juliot, seems to have been built around the end of the eleventh century, a time when the old Dark Age stronghold had long been abandoned and the castle had not yet been started. Even after the castle was built, this must have been die main place of Christian worship on the Island. The reason for building an isolated chapel here in the eleventh century is something of a mystery — there was already a small church nearby on the mainland, close to the present parish church. The chapel was a simple building, its chancel divided from the nave by a wooden screen. Originally, the entrance was bay a dorr in the south-west corner.

In the thirteenth century, when the chapel was used by people from the new castle, this door was blocked up and the entrance was moved to the west end andcovered by a small porch or tower.
Around the chapel are more low stone walls topped with grass. These are all that remain of quite a large complex of buildings of various dates — some Dark Age and some medieval. One of these buildings was used as the foundation for the chapel. Was it adopted just because it was a convenient shape, or could it too have been used for Christian worship, several centuries earlier when the Dark Age stronghold was in use?

From here, the path along the cliff edge towards the mainland leads you back down some steps to the Island Courtyard and on down to the
Bridge. When you reach the Bridge, you can go on to visit the two Mainland Courtyards of the castle, if you haven't already done so. To reach them, either climb the steep steps in front of you, or take the longer but gentler path that starts behind the Shop. Either route will take you to Waymark 1 where the description of the Mainland Courtyards begins.
The Legend of King Arthur

In winter, when the full power of the Atlantic is unleashed on it, die coastline of North Cornwall can be a truly terrifying place. Nowhere is die long-drawn battle between land and sea more clearly shown than at Tintagel, where for thousands of years the contorted rocks have been undermined and hollowed-out by die sea to create a strange landscape of magical beauty.
The drama of this jagged coast has inspired many legends. The most enduring are those of King Arthur and the Knights of die Round Table, which have enchanted people for more than a thousand years, and are among Britain's foremost contributions to European literature. Their themes of personal courage, loyalty and betrayal, and the quest for spiritual purity, have inspired an admiration for that vanished age of splendour which continues to this day.

From die very beginning, Arthur has been a role model. The first written account of his exploits was a deliberate attempt to create a hero from die past to inspire the present and give hope for the future. Five centuries later this was still the case. When William Caxton published die first printed version of die stories in 1485, he commented:

'0 ye Knights of England, where is the custom and usage of noble chivalry that was used in those days? What do you now but go to the baths and play at dice ... Leave this, leave
it and read the noble volumes of the Saint Graal, of Launcelot, of Galahad, of Tristram, of Perceval, of Gawain and many more. There shall ye see manhood, courtesy and gentleness.'

Tintagel and the Search for the Real Arthur

The first writer to connect Arthur with Tintagel was Geoffrey of Monmouth, who claimed that the future king had been conceived there. Later storytellers accepted die connection, their tales of Arthur drawing a new power from the wild and broken coastline of North Cornwall. In our own time, the realisation that Tintagel was indeed die seat of powerful kings following the end of Roman rule in Britain has opened up a new area of speculation.As they have come down to us, however, die wonderful stories of King Arthur and his knights are just that — stories. They are half— remembered events, modified by the interests of later generations and currents in literaryfashion, and by die differing talents of individual storytellers. The earliest written versions of these stories already contain duplications and inconsistencies, having been woven together know whether Arthur was a real person whose name became attached to ancient tales of magic, or whether he was an entirely fictitious character from Welsh and Irish folldore, introduced into an historical context to fill an awkward gap in die record. If he really existed, his true exploits were forgotten and later poets and storytellers recast him in various different roles more to die liking of their audiences. The legend of King Arthur and his knights turns out to have a history every bit as complicated as that of Tintagel itself.
The power of the legend, however, has generated a new and different reality. From die time that men and women began to model their lives on die fabled knights and ladies of King Arthur's court, the legend has influenced political thought, styles of building and modes of behaviour. It has also given rise to a still- expanding body of literature. As the old stories are retold to each succeeding generation, the bewitching Arthurian themes are reshaped to become more relevant to later times. Across die centuries, each generation has drawn from diese stories what it wants or needs. In this sense, Arthur really is a 'once and future king'.

The Creation of the Legend

The legend of Arthur emerges from a time of mass migration in Britain. As the Roman Empire collapsed, pagan Saxons moved into the eastern parts of Britain, Irish tribes moved into the western parts and many of the Cornish moved to north-west France.
The history of times like these becomes very confused. Ancestors with similar names can be muddled-up: single events may be duplicated, while several other events may be fused into one. It is not surprising that the people of western Britain lost their sense of an ordered past and dung instead to cherished myths.By the ninth and tenth centuries AD, when Arthur first appears, there were already several separate versions of his story. Theroyal families of Dalriad in

south-west Scotland and Dyfed

in south-west Wales both claimed him as an ancestor.

Other people thought of him as a battle hero, the bench-mark against which other warriors might be measured. The poem known as Y Gododdin celebrates a raid on Catterick in North Yorkshire by a war band from near Edinburgh.
One British warrior is said to have —

"glutted the black ravens (with corpses) on thee rampartsof the first, even though he was not Arthur."

For the early Welsh poets, on the other hand, Arthur was a man who moved easily in and out of the magical world of pagan Celtic myth. Alongside his human companions, as he killed giants and tried to steal
magic cauldrons from `the Otherworld', we find semi-divine figures common to both Welsh and Irish mythology. Many of these Welsh stories hark back to much earlier tales, but they are also die forerunners of the chivalric romances of die Middle Ages.



The Early Historians

The first person to try to set Arthur in a real context was Nennius, an early ninth-century Welsh cleric. Wrestling with several different traditions, and not having a proper historical chronology, he knittedtogether an outline of die man future writers would praise as the saviour of his country.The problem facing Nennius was how to bridge die gap between die end of Roman Britain and his own time. All he had as sources were some dubious lists of Irish-Welsh and Irish-Scottish kings, some Welsh folk-tales, a few memories of battles in various parts of Britain, and one golden nugget — a reference by an earlier writer called Gildas to an epic battle between the Britons and die Saxons, fought at a place called Mons Badonicus (probably near Bath) in about AD500. This battle had apparently been a watershed, stemming the Saxon advance for more than a generation. Gildas did not mention die name of die British commander, but for Nennius the scale of that ancient victory clearly demanded someone of heroic status.
So it was that Nennius created die first 'historical' Arthur — not a king, but a Christian war leader successful in twelve battles against die pagan Saxons, culminating in the final victory at Mons Badonicus that secured peace during his lifetime.Was Nennius right? Had the British commander in that vital battle three centuries earlier really been called Arthur? Or did Nennius just project back into die past a name celebrated in his own day in order to tidy up a vital bit of history?We shall never know. What is clear,however,is that Nennius's fellow Britons were not really interested in die idea of Arthur as a Christian battle leader defending die last strongholds of Roman Christianity against an oncoming tide of Saxon paganism. It was die stories of Arthur die giant killer, the half-magical hero of die early Welsh folk-tales, that gripped their imagination.In Cornwall and Brittany, however, another story was gaining popularity. This was die love story of Tristan and Yseult. By the ninth century there was a specifically Cornish version of die tale, centred on die court of King Mark radier than King Arthur. When the story was written down in the twelfth century, it was already several centuries old. By dien, King Mark's court was claimed to have been at Tintagel. Was this Cornish 'King Mark' a faint memory of the real kings of Dumnonia who had feasted their warriors on die rocky headland of Tintagel?
Furthermore we went still the little port this one of the National Trust manages for Boscastle and is cared for.
Such an intense wind blew, that Boscastle it almost would have blown me over.
Clive said:" It is a strict wind, no cold wind", and he was cold obviously only dressed in a shirt.
The excursion was surely one of the highlights of our holiday.

Boscastle

Boscastle's heyday was as a commercial port throughout most of the nineteenth century, for, while railways provided for Britain's industrial expansion elsewhere, the railway did not reach north Cornwall until 1893. Before that date all heavy goods to and from an area stretching many miles inland had to be carried by sea. Coal, ironwork and limestone from South Wales, and fertilisers, timber, corn, wines, spirits and general merchandise from Bristol were the main imports, with return cargoes of slate, china clay and manganese ore from a mine in the Valency Valley. More than a dozen ketches and schooners of 30 to 200 tons traded regularly through the little port. In one year 200 ships called.
Even cargoes of timber direct from Canada came into Boscastle.
The tortuous harbour entrance, with the island of Meachard standing off as an extra hazard, meant it was never safe for sailing vessels to enter Boscastle un- assisted. They were therefore towed or 'hobbled' in by 'hobbler' boats manned by eight oarsmen. Gangs of men on shore took other ropes to keep the ships in the middle of the channel.
Hauling goods up Boscastle's steep hills needed strong teams of horses, many of them kept at the Palace Stables, now the youth hostel, and there was constant work for the blacksmith in the forge, now the National Trust's shop and information centre. An early steam traction engine brought a load of iron ore for export from Trebursye near Launceston. The strange machine caused horses to bolt, sparks set fire to a man's shirt and on the way back it slid into a ditch 'and strained itself.
To eliminate the severe gradient at the foot of Penally Hill the Green Cut was engineered around the hillside to the harbour. Sometimes called the Private Road, there are those who say it was built as the result of a dispute between two Boscastle firms. Whatever the reason, it is now an attractive promenade, conveniently provided with seats.
Boscastle was a busy, bustling place. Imagine the scene in about 1855. Ships are loading and unloading, with carts and trolleys trundling between the quay and the warehouses, while a clattering team of horses arrives with a heavy waggon loaded with slate for shipment. The horses are led off to the stables, though one of them is taken to the forge for shoeing.
In the boat-building yard near the slipway a new ketch is taking shape, while 100yds away men are stacking the limekiln ready for a burn, and wheel- wrights across the river are repairing a waggon. The sweet smell of malting barley floats from the malting house, a building behind what is now the Riverside Hotel, and a burst of song comes from the Ship Inn at the north-east corner of the Valency Lawn.
A carrier's waggon, laden with lime and slag, and needing a four-horse team to haul it, sets out for a Camelford farm, from which it will return tomorrow via Trewarmett Quarry with another load of slate for shipment. As the day draws on an errand boy arrives from one of Boscastle's four butchers with provisions for a ship preparing to sail on the evening tide, while merchants and ships' captains gather at the Wellington to arrange cargoes and discuss the state of trade.

If the picture given of Boscastle 130 years ago is of a workaday port, there is an account in The West Briton for 11 May 1849 which shows that the first visitors were making their presence felt, and one man at least was responding to their needs. A Mr Fuggard is reported as having built walks, cliff cuttings, seats and chairs for the benefit of those 'desirous of improving their health. . . on the northern coast.' In the Edwardian era a nine-hole golf course was laid out on the fields above Penally House, but it never developed and only survived into the 1920s.

In 1536 John Leland, antiquary and geographer, wrote that Boscastle was 'a pore Havenet of no certaine Salvegarde,' and in 1584 Sir Richard Grenville, as High Sheriff of Cornwall in the years prior to the Spanish Armada (1588), ordered the rebuilding of its ruinous quay. The outer breakwater was added in about 1820; this was blown up by a floating mine in 1941.
The harbour trade declined after the railway came through to Camelford in 1893. Nowadays pleasure craft are tied up fore and aft to cope with the sea surge, and fishermen base themselves here while they work the shell-fishing grounds along the coast to the north. The fish weather vane on Penally tells sailors the wind's direction in the open, as it is impossible to read the wind accurately from the harbour. (See page 9.)
Boscastle's blow-hole beneath Penally Point, often called the Devil's Bellows, thumps and snorts about an hour on either side of low tide, blowing a horizontal waterspout halfway across the harbour entrance if conditions are right. The serrated knob of rock on the tip of the Point is Profile Rock, and at one time — before wind and weather eroded some of the stone — it bore a certain resemblance to Queen Victoria's head in silhouette.

Temperature: ca. 15°C - marvellous waether, but a more coldly strict wind
Driven miles: 126 = 203 km