That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot.
Camelot. Alan Jay Lerner 1960
High summer in Cornwall is best enjoyed inland, away from the coast. In August the coastal resorts are packed to bursting with family holidaymakers. Inland, on empty Bodmin Moor, there is tranquillity and peace.
The high stone hedgerows of the picturesque narrow lanes on the moorland edge are bedecked in their summer glory of wild flowers, dancing buttercup and daisy, blackberry and fern, and are relatively free of cars. Marked by ancient Celtic crosses, witness to a bygone age of myth and miracle, they wind their leisurely way to small sleepy hamlets like St. Kew - granite cottages roofed in the local Delabole slate, and to ancient towns dominated by weatherbeaten medieval churches with embattled, square-towered belfries. Campanology, the ancient art of bellringing, is alive and well here, as is the social activity in the local pub after the pealing! Pulling bell ropes on a summer's evening is thirsty work!
You are in moorland Cornwall; a land of narrow valleys filled with oak and rhododendron, where babbling leats of crystal water run off the windblown granite uplands of the moors. Some say this was Camelot.
It is an enchanted land of timeless stone circles, dolmens and quoits. They stand stark against an Atlantic-blue summer sky, sacred memories of half forgotten Ancient Ways and holy mysteries.
The rugged wayside Celtic Crosses bear weathered granite witness to a new Faith that blossomed here 1500 years ago with the coming of Petroc, ascetic Welsh missionary and fabled miracle worker of the early saintly Celtic Church, who set up his cell next to a holy well at Bodmin.
They say that the heroic King Arthur, whose memory spawned a thousand legends, was born in these parts. Tintagel, his legendary castle, stands here upon a windswept clifftop overlooking the Atlantic waves which thunder and spume into Merlin's Cave hidden in the granite cliffs below. A silent ruin now, his castle gathers mystery, as ravens circle its fallen ramparts.
Perhaps it was here at Slaughterbridge by the River Camel that Arthur fought his last battle. It was to nearby Dozmary Pool, the bottomless lake on Bodmin Moor that Excalibur, his magickal sword, was returned by Sir Bedivere to to the Lady of the Lake.
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