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| Tintagel Head |
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| The coast just southwest of Tintagel. I've been wanting to travel to Tintagel since I was a teenager, reading about the Arthurian legends. The legends are as numerous and as varied as one could imagine, but the basic story is that Uther Pendragon, a Romano-British king, wanted Igraine, the wife of Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall. Uther asked Merlin to help him figure out a way to spend the night with her in Tintagel, where she lived. Merlin offered to cast a spell to make Uther look like Gorlois for one night, in exchange for the child that would be conceived. Merlin had apparently had visions of Arthur's birth and success as a great king, so he manipulated the situation to make it happen. The night that Uther visited Igraine, Gorlois was killed in battle. After the birth of Arthur, Uther and Igraine married. It's a possibility that a conection may exist - Tintagel head is covered with structural remains and artifacts dating to the 5th and 6th century, the time most people believe King Arthur was alive. |
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| The view to the castle remains. What you see was built by Richard, the Duke of Cornwall, in the 1200s. Richard was a contemporary of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who spun the tales of Arthur that we know today. Although Geoffrey of Monmouth is not a reliable historical source, he had everyone convinced that Tintagel was the birthplace of Arthur and the seat of the ancient Dukes of Cornwall. With that in mind, Richard built this grand structure mostly out of a romantic desire to be assoicated with the mystical Arthurian legends. |
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| Photos showing both openings from the middle of a crazy cave that cuts beneath Tintagel Head. There must have been tons of things that went on down here. |
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| The courtyard of Earl Richard's castle - ca 1200s. |
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| Doorway going from Richard's courtyard toward the top of the headland. The masonry all over Tintagel is really cool - the rock is primarily shale, a flat, thin stone, making for some interesting structural designs. |
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| View northeast to Merlin's Cave. The photos from the interior of a cave shown earlier are not from Merlin's Cave, but from one far beneath where I am standing when I took this shot. |
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| Here you can see traces of 5th century buildings and walls. I can see how the Tintagel headland would be great defensible space, but the weather is very violently windy and there are precipices everywhere. You could get blown off this thing. Can't imagine it would have been a very comfortable place to live. However, there are more pieces of imported Mediterranean pottery that have been found here than in the rest of Britain and Ireland combined. Obviously this area does not function well as a port, so archaeologists believe a wealthy and/or powerful group of folks must have lived here in the fifth century. |
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| Aaahhhhh. |
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| The view from the head toward the mainland. You can see Richard's castle in the background built on a huge rock; in the foreground are the 5th/6th century remains. The headland and the mainland were separated by a small isthmus when people lived here 1500 years ago. By Richard's time it had been washed away, so he built a bridge between the two. |
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| More of the early remains |
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| A tunnel, which was built using metal tools, at an unknown date. No one knows what it was used for. Cold storage, drainage...? Surprisingly, there is a fresh water well at the top of Tintagel head, a huge desolate rock, about 20 meters from this tunnel. |
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| Sitting in the tunnel |
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| View from the head to the southwest |
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| Absolutely insane wind action. |
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| More views from the head to Richard's castle. |
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