The so-called " Arthur stone ", discovered in 1998 among the ruins at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall in securely dated 6th-century contexts, created a brief stir but proved irrelevant.

Following the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, Shackleton transferred to the troopship Tintagel Castle where, in March 1900, he met an army lieutenant, Cedric Longstaff, whose father Llewellyn W. Longstaff was the main financial backer of the National Antarctic Expedition, then being organised in London.

The village and nearby Tintagel Castle are associated with the legends surrounding King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

Toponymists have had difficulty explaining the origin of ' Tintagel ': the probability is that it is Norman French as the Cornish of the 13th century would have lacked the soft ' g ' (' i / j ' in the earliest forms: see also Tintagel Castle ).

Remains of Tintagel Castle, legendary birthplace of King Arthur

( If this is correct then it would have been on the site of Tintagel Castle.

* Tintagel Castle Lodge of Mark Master Masons No. 1800 which was consecrated on 23 April 1999.

It stands on the cliffs between Trevena and Tintagel Castle and is listed Grade I.

The film Knights of the Round Table had some sequences filmed near Tintagel Castle with local people as extras: this was in 1953 though it was not released until 1954.

Overlooking the ruins of Tintagel Castle.

* Radford, C. A. Ralegh ( 1939 ) Tintagel Castle.

* Tintagel Castle, Tintagel, Cornwall.

* Tintagel Castle in Cornwall ( also said to be Arthur's birthplace by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Tintagel Castle is a 13th Century construct whereas the Arthurian legends refer to the post-Roman / early Saxon era of the mid 5th Century making the two completely unrelated.

Today, Tintagel Castle is a tourist destination, as it has been since the mid-19th century, and it is managed by the governmental organisation English Heritage.

It was in this regional background that settlement continued at Tintagel Castle, with the creation of what is known by archaeologists as Period II of the site.

The hypothesis that Tintagel Castle had been a monastery during Period II was pioneered by the Devon archaeologist C. A. Ralegh Radford, who excavated at the site from 1933 through to 1938.

He came to this conclusion based upon some similarities in the structures of the Early Medieval elements of Tintagel Castle and the seventh century monastery at the site of Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire.

In 1225 Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, swapped the land of Merthen ( originally part of the manor of Winnianton ) with Gervase de Tintagel for Tintagel Castle.

The modern-day village of Tintagel was known as Trevena () until the Post Office established ' Tintagel ' as the name in the mid 19th century ( until then Tintagel had always been the name of the headland and of the parish ).

Tintagel (; ; originally Trevena from ) is a civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.

Tintagel is also used as a locus for the Arthurian mythos by the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the poem Idylls of the King.

The parish feast traditionally celebrated at Tintagel was October 19, the feast day of St Denys, patron of the chapel at Trevena ( the proper date is October 9 but the feast has moved forward due to the calendar reform of 1752 ).

The Ravenna Cosmography, of around 700, makes reference to Purocoronavis, ( almost certainly a corruption of Durocornovium ), ' a fort or walled settlement of the Cornovii ': the location is unidentified, but Tintagel and Carn Brea have both been suggested.

Two of the Roman milestones found in Cornwall are at Tintagel ( the earlier of the two is described under Trethevy ): the later one was found in the walls of the churchyard in 1889 and is preserved in the church.

" King Arthur's Footprint " is a hollow in the rock at the highest point of Tintagel Island's southern side.

The name commemorates the abbey in France which held the patronage of Tintagel during the Middle Ages ( the commune is now known as Fontevraud-l ' Abbaye ), founded by Robert of Arbrissel.

For the purposes of local government Tintagel is a civil parish and councillors are elected every four years.

The coastline around Tintagel is significant because it is composed of old Devonian slate ; about a mile southwards from Tintagel towards Treknow the coastline was quarried extensively for this hard-wearing roofing surface.

The turquoise green water around this coast is caused by the slate / sand around Tintagel which contains elements of copper: strong sunlight turns the water a light turquoise green colour in warm weather.

The beach at Bossiney Haven is close by and Trebarwith Strand, just half an hour's walk south of Tintagel, is one of Cornwall's finer beaches, boasting clear seas, golden sands, and superb surf: there is a small beach at Tintagel Haven immediately north of the castle.

Opposite the Wharncliffe is the former Tintagel Hotel, once commonly known as Fry's Hotel: this was the terminus for coaches in the days before the railway to Camelford Station and stands on the site of the medieval chapel of St Denys.

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth and subsequent medieval writers, King Arthur was conceived at Tintagel but it is a coincidence to find a similar-looking name here.

Heysham also contains one of only three sites in Britain and Ireland that contain a pre-roman labyrinth, the others being located at Tintagel, Cornwall and Hollywood, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Treknow is a small village in Tintagel civil parish, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom: it is the second largest settlement, and is located between Trevena and Trebarwith.

Major excavations beginning with C. A. Ralegh Radford's work in the 1930s on and around the site of the 12th century castle have revealed that Tintagel headland was the site of a high status Celtic monastery ( according to Ralegh Radford ) or a princely fortress / trading settlement dating to the 5th and 6th centuries ( according to later excavators ), in the period immediately following the withdrawal of the Romans from Britain.

Glasscock was resident at Tintagel ( in the house " Eirenicon " which he had built ) and responsible for the building of King Arthur's Hall ( an extension of Trevena House which had been John Douglas Cook's residence and had been built on the site of the former Town Hall and Market Hall ).

Parish council minutes can be found on Tintagel Web.

The story is told in verse in ' Musings on Tintagel and its Heroes ' by Joseph Brown, 1897 ; the youth was buried in Tintagel Churchyard and the grave is marked by a wooden cross ( his name is given in the official Italian usage, surname first: Catanese Domenico ).

Near Dunderhole Point on Glebe Cliff stands a building from the former slate quarry: this has been used as Tintagel Youth Hostel ( managed by YHA ( England and Wales )) for many years.

Hardy and his first wife visited Tintagel on various occasions: she drew a sketch of the inside of the church as it was about 1867 R. S. Hawker's poem about the bells of Forrabury refers also to those of Tintagel, but more notable is his one on the Quest for the Sangraal ( first published at Exeter in 1864 ).

Edward Elgar also composed while on a visit to Tintagel.

However, there has been some dispute amongst archaeologists as to exactly what the site of Tintagel Island was used for in this period: in the mid twentieth century, it was typically thought that there was an early Christian monastery on the site, but " since about 1980 ... thesis ... has ... had to be abandoned ", with archaeologists now believing that it was instead an elite settlement inhabited by a powerful local warlord or even Dumnonian royalty.

Carrying on from this, he noted that the quantity of imported pottery from Tintagel was " larger than the combined total of all such pottery from all known sites this period in Britain and Ireland ; and, given that only about 5 per cent of the Island's accessible surface has been excavated or examined, the original total of imports may well have been on a scale of one or more complete shiploads-with individual ships perhaps carrying a cargo of six or seven hundred amphorae.

Strictly speaking, Tintagel is only the name of the headland ( Tintagel Head itself is the extreme south-west point of Castle Island and the castle ruins are partly on the ' island ' and partly on the adjoining mainland ).