Tintagel Castle

Abstract

Tintagel Castle (at NGR SS 0589) has been strangely absent from the pages of ANTIQUITY. O.G.S. Crawford missed seeing it during his Cornish trips in the 1920s. Glyn Daniel was there only in October 1986, his last visit to Cornwall, when the place was also inspected by HRH Prince Charles – apparently the first Duke or Earl of Cornwall to set foot on the Island since Richard (1209–72; the younger brother of Henry III), who built the Castle and was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen in 1257. If Tintagel shares with Maiden Castle the fate of being among the most frequently excavated of all the Duchy of Cornwall's monuments, it stands alone in being at once the most picturesque and the most enigmatic.