Monday morning and we headed into the village of Tintagel by bus and the first visit on our itinerary was Tintagel Old Post Office. Grade I listed and a stone house constructed in the 14th-century. The house and its surrounding cottage garden are in the ownership of the National Trust so that meant free entry for Moe and myself.

The internal rooms are furnished and Moe even has her own exhibition.

The “mezzanine” or “shelf” area is where the single women slept together and apart from the men. If you click on the image below, you can see where the saying “left on the shelf” originates.

From the Old Post Office it was onwards and upwards to Tintagel castle which, unfortuantely for us, is an Englsh Heritage site and so handed over our £40 entrance fee.

The original castle was built by Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall in the 13th century during the High Middle Ages. It later fell into disrepair and ruin. The castle has a long association with the legends related to King Arthur when Geoffrey of Monmouth described Tintagel as the place of Arthur’s conception in his mythological account of British History.

The castle was originally accessed via a land bridge directly, but this gradually became eroded and the castle was then essentially detached from the mainland (15th / 16th century). In 2019 Tintagel Castle Bridge opened to re-connect the mainland with the island.

Tintagel Castle is one of English Heritage’s top five attractions with around 200,000 visitors each year and up to 3,000 a day during the peak season.

Tomorrow, we head south to Carnon Downs.