Tintagel castle
On castle island
St Julietta's font
Roman stone
The current castle was built on the site by Richard, Earl of Cornwall in 1233. Richard's castle had fallen into disrepair within about a century of of it being built, but the dungeon was used as state prison for some time after that. By 1538 when Leland visited it, the castle had been a ruin for approximately two centuries:
"Shepe now fede within the dungeon. The residew of the buildinges of the Castel be sore wether-beten and yn ruine, but it hath beene a
large thinge...ij be woren away with gulfying yn of the se: withowte the isle renneth alonly a gate house, a walle, and a fals braye dyged and walled. On the isle remayne old walles, and yn the est parte of the same, the grownd beyng lower, remayneth a walle embateled, and men alyve saw ther, yn a postern, a dore of yren. There is in the isle a prety chapel, with a tumbe on the left syde."
and Norden, who surveyed the buildings in 1585 also reported:
"it was somtime a statelye impregnable seate, now rent and ragged by force of time and tempestes; her ruyns testefie her pristine worth; the view wherof and due observation of her situation, shape, and condition, in all partes, may more commisseration that suche a stately pile shoulde perishe for wante of honorable presence. Nature hath fortified and arte dyd once beautefie it in such sorte, as it leaveth unto this age wounder and imitation; for the morter and ciment wherwith the stones of this Castle were layde, excelleth
in fastnes and obduritye the stones themselves; and nether time nor force of handes can easelye sever the one from the other."
The font from the castle chapel was salvaged and is now in St Materiana Church
Richard's castle was certainly not the first on this site. In the 12th century, roughly 100 years before Richard built the current castle at Tintagel, Geoffrey of Monmouth described the previous castle at Tintagel as:
"It is situated upon the sea, and on every side surrounded by it, and there is an entrance to it, and that through a straight rock, which three men shall be able to defend against the whole power of the kingdom"
Scholars think the castle described by Geoffrey of Monmouth would have been a fortification of earth and stone.
Major excavations beginning in the 1930s on and around the site have revealed that Tintagel headland was the site of a high status Celtic monastery or a princely fortress / trading settlement dating to the 5th and 6th centuries, in the period immediately following the withdrawal of the Romans from Britain. Finds of Mediterranean oil and wine jars show that Sub-Roman Britain was not the isolated outpost it was previously considered to be, for an extensive trade in high-value goods was taking place at the time with the Mediterranean region.
A Roman stone was found nearby bearing the name of the Emperor Licinius (who was emperor in the early 4th century) which may be evidence that there was once a Roman camp nearby before the celtic settlement. This stone is also in St Materiana Church.
In 1998 a sixth century stone bearing the name Arthur was found at the castle which somewhat excited historians, describing the stone as "the find of a lifetime". The Arthur stone shows that the inhabitants of Tintagel carried on living a Romanised life, and read and wrote Latin, long after the Romans left England in 410 AD. It also shows that the name Arthur existed at that time and that the stone belonged to a person of status, though there is currently no evidence to link the name on the stone to the historical figure Arthur.
