Clifftop ruins on the wild north Cornwall coast, tied for centuries to the legend of King Arthur and now reached by a footbridge
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Tintagel Castle is split across a dark, rocky headland and the near-island beside it, on a stretch of the north Cornwall coast that takes the full force of the Atlantic. Most of the ruins you scramble around belong to a castle built in the 1230s by Richard, Earl of Cornwall and brother of King Henry III. He seems to have chosen the spot less for defence than for its old fame, because long before the castle Tintagel was a busy high-status settlement in the centuries after the Romans left, trading for wine and fine pottery all the way from the Mediterranean.
The Arthurian link comes from the writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in the twelfth century named Tintagel as the place King Arthur was conceived. There is no evidence Arthur was real, but the story stuck, and it is why the beach below has long been called Merlin’s Cave. A footbridge now links the mainland to the island, which spares you some of the old climb, though there are still plenty of steps and steep paths, and the weather here can be fierce.
English Heritage runs the site. It sits just outside the village of Tintagel, with the South West Coast Path running right past. A short way inland, the waterfall and old chapel in the wooded St Nectan’s Glen make an easy add-on, and the harbour village of Boscastle is a few miles up the coast to the east.
More at the National Heritage List entry
