Tintagel Castle

The wind hits you first. You are standing on a headland that is half mainland, half island, split by a deep chasm with the sea churning far below, and clinging to the rock on both sides are the broken grey walls of a castle. A slender footbridge spans the gap. This is Tintagel, and few places in England wear their legends so heavily, or so well.

The walls you see were raised in the twelve-thirties by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of a king and one of the richest men in Europe. Yet the castle is almost the youngest thing here. Seven hundred years before Richard laid a stone, in the misty centuries after Rome withdrew from Britain, this rock was already a place of power. In the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries a high-status settlement stood on this headland, trading right across the known world. Excavations have turned up fine pottery and glass carried here from the Mediterranean, wine and oil from lands thousands of miles away, brought to this remote Cornish cliff. They also found a piece of carved slate, the famous "Artognou" stone, an inscription from the Dark Ages that set imaginations alight. And it is here, above all, that legend places the conception of King Arthur, a story woven into Tintagel by the medieval writer Geoffrey of Monmouth and never let go since. Richard almost certainly built here to borrow that Arthurian glamour. The castle was a piece of theatre as much as a fortress.

Now cross into the story yourself, and look for what makes this place extraordinary. First, the footbridge, opened by English Heritage in 2019, which for the first time in centuries reconnects the mainland to the island headland; walk out onto it and feel the drop and the wind together. Second, the ruined walls themselves, clinging impossibly to the slopes of the island, gateway and great hall and courtyard reduced to grey outlines against the sky. Third, look down to the base of the headland for the dark mouth of Merlin's Cave, a great sea-cut tunnel that pierces right through the rock and can be entered on foot at low tide. Fourth, study the cliffs, hard Devonian slates and volcanic rock, deeply fissured by the waves; the fine local slate was quarried all along this coast. Fifth, watch the birds, fulmars and kittiwakes and shags nesting on the ledges, ravens tumbling on the gusts, peregrines cutting across the void, and grey seals rolling in the swell far below.

Now the legend itself, and let it work on you. Geoffrey of Monmouth told how King Uther Pendragon burned with desire for Igraine, the wife of another lord, who was kept safe within the walls of Tintagel. Uther could not reach her, so he turned to Merlin. By the wizard's magic Uther was given the exact likeness of Igraine's husband, and in that borrowed shape he crossed to the island and came to her. From that night of enchantment and deception, the story says, Arthur was conceived, the once and future king born of magic on this very rock. It is legend, not history, and the true Dark Age settlement here needs no myth to be remarkable. But stand on the bridge with the sea roaring in Merlin's Cave beneath you, and you will feel exactly why the story chose this place.

From Tintagel the Coast Path threads on along a magnificent slate coast of coves and quarried cliffs toward Port Isaac, and back in the village waits the medieval Old Post Office, its wavy roof a quieter marvel. But before you go, walk out onto the headland one last time. Let the wind take your breath, watch the sea drive white against the black rock, and let the old stories rise. Some places simply hold their legends better than others. Mind the drops and the steps. Walk safe.