Tintagel ( / t ɪ n ˈ t æ dʒ əl / ) or Trevena ( Cornish : Tre war Venydh , meaning Village on a Mountain ) is a type of local government area and village located on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall , England, United Kingdom. The village and the nearby Tintagel Castle are connected to stories about King Arthur. In recent years, the area has become a place where many visitors go. Geoffrey of Monmouth said that the castle was where King Arthur was born.

Toponymy

Experts who study place names have struggled to explain the origin of "Tintagel." It is likely that the name comes from Norman French, as the Cornish language in the 13th century did not include the soft "g" sound. Early forms of the name used "i/j" instead of "g," as seen in Tintagel Castle. If the name is Cornish, "Dun" might mean "fort." Oliver Padel suggests in his book that "Dun" and "tagell" could mean "narrow place." A similar name, "Tente d'Agel," exists in the Channel Islands, but this does not fully answer the question.

The name first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (written around 1136 in Latin) as "Tintagol," suggesting the "g" sound was hard, like in the English word "girl." In Layamon's Brut (an early Middle English text), the name is spelled "Tintaieol." The letter "i" here suggests a soft consonant, similar to the "j" in "joke." The second part of the name may have sounded like "-ageul" in modern French.

A commonly cited Celtic explanation in the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names supports Oliver Padel's 1985 idea that the name comes from the Cornish words din (meaning "fort") and tagell (meaning "neck," "throat," or "narrow place"). This is similar to the Celtic word dūn ("fort"), found in Irish dún and Welsh dinas ("city"), and tagell in Welsh ("gill," "wattle").

The modern village of Tintagel was historically called "Trevena" (in Cornish: Tre war Venydh) until the Post Office began using "Tintagel" as the official name in the mid-19th century. Before this, "Tintagel" was used only for the headland and the parish.

Area and population

Treknow is the largest settlement in the Tintagel parish, which also includes Bossiney, Truas, Trebarwith, Tregatta, Trenale, Trethevy, Treven, Trevillet, and Trewarmett. The total population of the parish was 1,725 in the 2021 census, 1,727 in the 2011 census, and 1,820 in the 2001 census. The area of the parish covers 4,281 acres, or 17.32 square kilometers. (The 2011 census recorded a population of 1,782, but this number includes Knightsmill, which is part of the St Teath parish.)

An electoral ward also exists in the area, reaching inland to Otterham. The population of this ward was 3,990 according to the same census.

History and government

A small cliff castle was built at Bossiney during Norman times, likely before the Domesday Survey of 1086. The Domesday Book records two manors in this parish (a third may have existed in Trethevy).

Bossiney and Trevena became a borough in 1253 by Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall. Bossiney (which included Trevena) was controlled by the Earl of Cornwall, who held it from the monks of Bodmin. There were six ploughs and 30 acres (120,000 m²) of pasture land. Before the Norman Conquest, the same land was held by Alfwy. The monks of Bodmin directly owned Treknow, which had eight ploughs and 100 acres (400,000 m²) of pasture. Tintagel was one of the 17 Antiqua maneria of the Duchy of Cornwall. The parish feast at Tintagel was traditionally held on 19 October, the feast day of St Denys, patron of the chapel at Trevena. The proper date was 9 October, but the feast moved forward due to a calendar change in 1752. The market hall and fair were near the chapel. Tintagel (Trevena) declined by the end of the medieval period because it was not well suited for fishing. However, it now benefits from tourism due to interest in the castle, which Geoffrey of Monmouth romanticized as the home of King Arthur.

The Tithe Commissioners’ survey in 1840–41 recorded the parish as 4,280 acres (17.3 km²), with 3,200 acres (13 km²) of arable and pasture land. Lord Wharncliffe owned 1,814 acres (7.34 km²), and there were 125 acres (0.51 km²) of glebe land. Detailed records of land size and ownership were kept. Sidney Madge researched the parish’s history and created a manuscript titled Records of Tintagel in 1945. The villages of Trevena and Bossiney were separated by fields along Bossiney Road until the early 20th century.

Trebarwith was the site of the shipwreck of the Sarah Anderson in 1886, where all passengers died. The most famous wreck occurred on 20 December 1893 at Lye Rock, when the barque Iota crashed against the cliff. The crew survived, except for a 14-year-old boy, who was later buried in Tintagel Churchyard with a wooden cross. His name, written in Italian style, is Catanese Domenico. The story was written in verse in Musings on Tintagel and its Heroes by Joseph Brown in 1897. On 6 July 1979, an RAF Hawker Hunter fighter jet crashed in Tintagel due to an engine failure, causing damage but no deaths.

The borough of Bossiney had the right to send two members to Parliament around 1552 and continued until 1832, when its status was abolished. Today, Tintagel is a civil parish, with councillors elected every four years. The local authority is Cornwall Council, though until March 2009, the parish was part of North Cornwall District Council. Parish council minutes are available on Tintagel Web. From 1894 to 1974, the parish was part of the Camelford Rural District.

Arthurian legend

As written in Geoffrey's well-known book Historia, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, placed his wife, Igraine, in Tintagel while he was away fighting in a war ("he placed her in the town of Tintagel on the shore of the sea"). Merlin changed Uther Pendragon's appearance to look like Gorlois so that Uther could go to Tintagel and have a child with Igraine while pretending to be Gorlois. Their child was King Arthur. This story became the common beginning of Arthur's tale in later medieval writings and chivalric romances. In the modern era, the idea that Tintagel was where Arthur was born became widely known because of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's work Idylls of the King.

Some parts of the Tristan and Iseult story also take place in Tintagel. Modern books, such as Algernon Charles Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse and Thomas Hardy's The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse, continued to connect Tintagel with this legend.

Tourists can visit King Arthur's Great Halls at Trevena, a large building built in the early 1930s. The Artognou stone, found in 1998, has added to the legend, though historians believe the stone's writing does not mention King Arthur.

Archaeology and architecture

The Ravenna Cosmography, created around 700, mentions a place called Purocoronavis (likely a misspelling of Durocornovium), described as a "fort or walled settlement of the Cornovii." The exact location is unknown, but Tintagel and Carn Brea have been suggested. If correct, this would mean the site was where Tintagel Castle now stands. Excavations near Tintagel Castle have found evidence of trade during the early medieval period, including goods like wine and oil from the Atlantic Coast and the Mediterranean Sea. The site may have been a place where a local king or warlord, possibly from Dumnonia, and their group lived and traded with ships arriving from distant ports.

Major excavations began in the 1930s with work by C. A. Ralegh Radford around the 12th-century castle. These studies showed that the Tintagel headland was either a high-status Celtic monastery (as Radford believed) or a princely fortress and trading settlement dating to the 5th and 6th centuries (as later excavators found). This was during the time after the Romans left Britain. Finds of Mediterranean oil and wine jars prove that Sub-Roman Britain was not as isolated as once thought, as trade with the Mediterranean region was active during this time.

Artifacts from these excavations are kept at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro. In 1998, the Artognou stone was discovered, adding to Tintagel’s connection to Arthurian legends, though historians do not believe it refers to King Arthur. Two excavation seasons were conducted in Tintagel’s churchyard in the early 1990s.

The largest Bronze Age barrow is at Condolden, the highest point in the parish. Another is at Menadue, and others are found along the cliffs. During the Iron Age, there may have been fortifications at Willapark, Barras Head, and inland at Trenale Bury. Two Roman milestones found in Cornwall are at Tintagel: one was discovered in Trethevy, and the other was found in the churchyard walls in 1889 and is now preserved in the church. The inscription reads "[I]mp C G Val Lic Licin," which refers to Emperor Licinius (died 324).

Other ancient relics include the "King Arthur’s Footprint," a hollow in the rock on Tintagel Island’s southern side, and a carved rock from Starapark placed outside Sir James Smith’s School in Camelford. Rodney Castleden has studied these as Bronze Age ritual objects. The "Footprint" is not natural but was shaped by humans and may have been used for the inauguration of kings or chieftains. The name likely came from a 19th-century castle guide.

Two stone crosses were moved from their original locations. The simpler one is Hendra Cross (see Bossiney). Aelnat’s Cross, found at Trevillet and later moved to the Wharncliffe Arms Hotel in Trevena, is finely carved. Its inscription reads, "Aelnat made this cross for his soul," and the back has the names of the four evangelists. Aelnat was Saxon, and he and Alfwy, mentioned in 1086, are the only Anglo-Saxons recorded in the area. A poem by Thomas Hardy, "By the runic stone" (1917), was interpreted by Evelyn Hardy as referencing Aelnat’s Cross.

Tintagel’s Old Post Office, dating to the 14th century, became a post office in the 19th century and is now a Grade I listed building owned by the National Trust. Tintagel Primary School was built in 1914 at Treven to replace an older church school (founded in 1874) and has been expanded since. Students who attend comprehensive schools go to Sir James Smith’s School in Camelford. The Gift House was bought by the Tintagel Women’s Institute from Catherine Johns, not donated as previously thought. It is next to the Old Post Office.

The former Vicarage was built in the early 17th century with additions made in the late 18th and mid-19th centuries. Fontevrault Chapel and a well-preserved columbarium are in the grounds. The site and glebe lands were home to vicars as early as the mid-13th century, when the benefice was managed by the Abbey of Fontevraud in France. In 2008, the Diocese of Truro decided to sell the vicarage to build new accommodations for future vicars.

King Arthur’s Great Halls at Trevena is a large building from the early 1930s, built by F. T. Glasscock as the headquarters of the "Fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table." It uses Cornish stones and has 73 stained glass windows depicting Arthurian tales by Veronica Whall. William Hatherell painted scenes from King Arthur’s life. Glasscock founded the Fellowship in 1927 to promote Christian ideals and medieval chivalry. The hall is now a Masonic Hall and is home to four Masonic groups.

The King Arthur’s Castle Hotel (now Camelot Castle Hotel) was built in 1896 and opened in 1899 by Sir Robert Harvey, designed by Silvanus Trevail. It was meant to be the terminus hotel for a planned railway from Camelford that was never built. The hotel has battered walls, a central entrance tower, and Romanesque arcades with Italian marble piers. In 2010, the BBC program Inside Out South West exposed issues with the hotel’s business practices.

Two hotels once stood on Fore Street, Trevena: the Wharncliffe Hotel and the Tintagel Hotel. The Wharncliffe is now flats next to King Arthur’s Hall, where the Aelnat Cross is located. The hotel is named after the Earl of Wharncliffe, who owned much of the parish before selling his land in the early 20th century. Opposite the Wharncliffe is the former Tintagel Hotel, once called Fry’s Hotel, which was a coach terminus before the railway to Camelford Station. It stands on the site of the medieval chapel of St Denys. Near Dunderhole Point on Glebe Cliff is a building from a former slate quarry that has been used as Tintagel Youth Hostel for many years.

The Church of St Materiana (Tintagel Parish Church) has been Anglican since the English Reformation. It was originally built in Norman times, though Nikolaus Pevsner, writing in 1951, noted that some Saxon features may be present and the tower may date to the 13th or 1

Geography and nature

The coastline near Tintagel is important because it is made of old Devonian slate. About a mile south of Tintagel, toward Treknow, the coastline was quarried a lot for this strong, durable roofing material. Quarries inland at Trebarwith and Trevillet were used until the middle of the 20th century. The coast also includes headlands such as Willapark and Start Point.

The turquoise green water near this coast is caused by the slate and sand around Tintagel, which contain copper. When sunlight is strong, the water turns a light turquoise green in warm weather. The rocks also have small amounts of metal ores, some of which were mined during the Victorian era.

The hill of Condolden (or Kingsdown) is one of the few places in Cornwall outside Bodmin Moor that is more than 1,000 feet high. At Trethevy, there is a waterfall called St Nectan’s Kieve in a wooded valley. The beach at Bossiney Haven is nearby, and Trebarwith Strand, about half an hour south of Tintagel, is one of Cornwall’s best beaches with clear water, golden sand, and good waves. There is also a small beach at Tintagel Haven, just north of the castle, and a cave called Merlin’s Cave under the castle. A stream named the Trerammett River flows from Treven to Tintagel Haven.

The cliffs from Backways Cove, south of Trebarwith Strand, to Willapark, just south of Boscastle, are part of the Tintagel Cliffs SSSI (a special area for scientific study), protected for its coastal heaths and geological features. There are also four Geological Conservation Review sites.

Tintagel is located within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). National Trust properties in the area include the Old Post Office in Trevena, as well as parts of the cliffs such as Glebe Cliff, Barras Nose, and Penhallick Point. Coastal footpaths include part of the South West Coast Path.

The birds along the coast are interesting to watch. In 1935, an anonymous writer described Willapark as a place with large groups of seabirds (eight species). Inland, crows (including the Cornish chough and raven) and falcons live in the area. B. H. Ryves noted that the razorbill was common at Tintagel, possibly the largest group in the county, and summarized reports from earlier in the century. In 1991, a local bird keeper named Jon Hadwick wrote a book called Owl Light about his experience caring for ten owls and a buzzard. Charles Hambly, who also helped save shipwrecked sailors, was a correspondent for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in its early years. A hundred years later, Harry Sandercock observed that modern farming changes had not reduced bird populations.

Near Tintagel, at least 385 types of flowers, 30 kinds of grasses, and 16 types of ferns can be found. This area is a valuable place for botanists, and a list of 39 rare plants is included in Rambler’s Guide by W. J. C. Armstrong (1935).

Social and cultural life

Tintagel was the location for the Gorsedh Kernow in 1964.

The Social Hall, built by Mrs. Ruth Homan and the Old School in Fore Street, were the main places where people met most of the 20th century. Both the Women's Institute and the football and cricket teams are well-supported. Tintagel A.F.C. won the Cornwall championship in 1955–56 and have existed for over a hundred years; goalkeeper Harry Cann also played for Plymouth Argyle F.C. Until the 1930s, there were two golf courses and a few tennis courts. Neither golf course was reopened after World War II. Camelford Rugby Football Club was formed in 2008 and plays its home matches at Parc Tremain, Tintagel. Cornish wrestling tournaments, with prizes, have been held in Tintagel.

The Tintagel Orpheus Male Voice Choir was founded in 1926 by Jack Thomas, a Welshman who worked at Trevillet Quarry. The choir has practiced weekly and performed often since its founding.

Tintagel is used as a setting for the Arthurian legends in the poem Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and in Tristram of Lyonesse by Algernon Charles Swinburne, a literary version of the Tristan and Iseult story. Thomas Hardy’s one-act play The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse, published in 1923, is another version of the same legend, with events set in Tintagel (the book includes an imaginary drawing of Tintagel Castle from that time). Hardy and his first wife visited Tintagel several times; she drew a sketch of the inside of the church as it was around 1867. Tintagel is a major location in Fay Sampson’s Daughter of Tintagel series of Arthurian novels (later retitled Morgan le Fay).

The novelist Dinah Craik visited Tintagel in 1883 and published an informative account of her journey through Cornwall the following year. William Howitt’s visit was different; his account is titled “A day-dream at Tintagel” (in Visits to Remarkable Places). Few works of fiction use Tintagel as a setting; these include Anthony Trollope’s short story Malachi’s Cove and the epistolary novel Set in Silver by Charles and Alice Muriel Williamson, published in 1909. Ernest George Henham, a novelist who lived in Devon and used the pseudonym John Trevena, may have chosen the name Trevena from the original name for Tintagel, though his books focus mainly on Devon. Tintagel is a major location in Edith Wharton’s final, unfinished novel The Buccaneers, where the protagonist, Nan St. George, meets her future husband, the Duke of Tintagel, while exploring the ruins of Tintagel Castle. Wharton named the characters Duke and Duchess of Tintagel, though Tintagel is actually within the Duchy of Cornwall; in the novel, the Duke and Duchess live in a fictional Tintagel Castle built in the late 18th century.

Arnold Bax was inspired to compose his symphonic poem Tintagel after visiting the village. Edward Elgar also composed music during a visit to Tintagel.

The film Knights of the Round Table had some scenes filmed near Tintagel Castle with local people as extras. This was in 1953, though the film was not released until 1954. Some other filming has taken place in Tintagel, such as Malachi’s Cove at Trebarwith. The exterior of the Camelot Castle Hotel was used to portray Dr. Seward’s asylum in the 1979 film Dracula. The Youth Hostel was used as a location for the coastguard station in the 1981 BBC serial The Nightmare Man.

Notable people

The Earls and Dukes of Cornwall, who owned the castle, did not live at Tintagel, though some visited the area. Between 1552 and 1832, Tintagel was a voting area known as the Borough of Bossiney. It sent two representatives to the House of Commons, including Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Francis Drake, Francis Bacon, Sir Simon Harcourt, and James Stuart-Wortley.

During this time, Tintagel had mayors, with William Wade being the most well-known. He lived from around 1756 to 1786. At the same time, Rev. Arthur Wade served as a vicar from 1770 to 1810, and Charles Chilcott, who was very tall, lived until 1815. Rev. R. B. Kinsman, who was vicar from 1851 to 1894, also held the title of honorary constable of the castle.

In the 19th century, many writers visited Tintagel, including poet Robert Stephen Hawker, Charles Dickens, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, and philosopher Rudolf Steiner. John Douglas Cook, who started the Saturday Review and is buried at Tintagel, sometimes lived there. He owned Trevena House, which later became part of King Arthur's Hall.

Harry Cann, a football goalkeeper who played 225 games for Plymouth Argyle, was born in Tintagel. Henry George White, a village schoolteacher, was also a painter who created many artworks. The Very Rev. Cliff Piper, born in 1953 and currently Dean of Moray, Ross and Caithness, was also born in Tintagel.