Halfway across the brand new bridge that links the two halves of Tintagel Castle, there’s a gap where you can look down at the waves crashing on the rocks below. Don’t worry; it’s only a few inches wide so there’s no danger of falling through it. But it’s a thrilling reminder that you’re suspended between an island and the mainland; between the present and the past.
Like a lot of places in Cornwall, Tintagel has a complicated history. It was a big settlement during the Dark Ages, bigger than London at the time, and very well connected with the lands around the Med. More Mediterranean pottery has been found here than anywhere else in Britain. Why was Tintagel so important? No one seems sure. Those Mediterranean sailors may have been coming for tin, but they could have found it elsewhere in Cornwall.
By the Middle Ages, Tintagel was a ruin, and it might have remained so if a medieval hack called Geoffrey of Monmouth hadn’t written a racy book called The History of the Kings of Britain.
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