Synopsis: A trip to visit Tintagel Castle (EH) and Tintagel Old Post Office (NT) with Mum and sister-in-law. A lovely warm sunny day, the perfect day for the glorious views from this amazing location.
(selection of photos from Flickr photo set – use link above to view album)
I noted from my English Heritage magazine that new interpretation panels had been introduced at Tintagel Castle. The small on-site museum and café had been refurbished too. I’d been thinking for sometime it would be nice to visit the castle when my sister-in-law, Christine, suggested a day trip out with Mum. I recommended Tintagel, and all of our small party were keen. And what a tremendous day it was too.
Tintagel and its castle are wonderfully situated on the north Devon coast. The location alone is worth a trip. Add in to the mix the Tintagel Castle (EH) (Historic Monument) and the Old Post Office (NT) (Listed Grade I), and you have all the ingredients for an excellent day out. And on a glorious day like today, with warm sunshine in abundance, the place couldn’t have looked more splendid. It proved a busy place, but amenities were more than adequate for the surge of visitors falling upon the tiny village of Tintagel today.
I’ll keep this blog post brief. Tintagel is a fabulous place to visit, so don’t sit there reading this. Here are just a couple of photos of the two main attractions we visited today.
Tintagel Castle owes much of its reputation to the King Arthur legend, as this reputedly was the place of his birth. Since the story is an unfathomable mix of fact and fiction, everyone must make of it what they will. But, whatever the truth, it’s a great story, one that fires the imagination, especially of children. And what greater romantic location for such a story could there be than Tintagel Castle? Just beware the children and their plastic swords as you scale the narrow path to the ramparts. Do I hear those immortal words, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”?
Tintagel Old Post Office is a sight to behold. There doesn’t appear to be a straight line in the building. It has a Middle-earth quality about it, and you half expect to bump into a Hobbit. The height of the doors and ceilings in the building would also suggest this. It is quaintness personified. The building is an early acquisition of the National Trust (1903). Thank goodness this little gem of a property has been preserved, in all its glorious 600 year history, to this very day. It is a window on the past.
I end this post with a little family story as told by my rather wayward mother. Apparently, so my mother tells me, Tintagel was, in her youth, always a popular destination for days out by bus. So it was that on a summer’s day many years ago my mother travelled with her parents on a day-trip to Tintagel. On entering the Old Post Office, people could be seen scribbling their names on one of the whitewashed walls of the building. The use of part of an historic building for graffiti probably strikes us as slightly improper today. Anyway, as everyone else was doing it, my grandparents wrote their names, and then encouraged their daughter, my mother-to-be, to write her name. A couple of weeks later my mother received a fine in the post. She is convinced she is the only person to ever have been fined for such an action, and puts it down to the unfortunate legibility of her writing. Today (thankfully) we could find no evidence of this early transgression on the part of my mother. If, wherever your perambulations should take you, you happen to come across the name Jean Rockett scrawled upon a wall somewhere, that will be my mother.
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