Tintagel Castle
Tintagel Castle on the north Cornish coast clings to a dramatic promontory and island of dark Devonian slate connected to the mainland by a narrow rock bridge, its ruins combining the genuine historical interest of a thirteenth-century Cornish royal castle with the powerful legendary associations with King Arthur and the Matter of Britain that have made this one of the most evocative and most visited heritage sites in the southwest. The combination of the extraordinary coastal setting, the castle ruins and the Arthurian tradition creates an atmosphere unlike any other heritage site in England.
The historical castle was built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in the 1230s and takes advantage of the extraordinary natural defensibility of the promontory that projects from the cliff face and is connected to the mainland by a rock bridge that can be crossed on foot at all states of the tide. The castle consists of two separate enclosures, one on the mainland and one on the island, connected by the narrow crossing, and the ruins on the island in particular retain considerable height and dramatic quality in their cliff-edge setting.
The Arthurian associations of Tintagel were established by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain of approximately 1138, which identified Tintagel as the place of Arthur's conception by Uther Pendragon and Igraine. This literary association predates the historical castle by a century, suggesting that Geoffrey was drawing on an older tradition associating the promontory with legendary history. The discovery of a significant early medieval settlement on the site, including imported Mediterranean pottery indicating high-status occupation in the fifth and sixth centuries, has given archaeological support to the idea that Tintagel was a place of genuine importance in the period when Arthur is legendarily set.
The footbridge installed in 2019 provides direct access between the mainland and island sections without the previous steep climb.