The 25-inch Ordnance Map represents the continental part of the castle as built upon the site of a camp. It is with great diffidence that I venture to question this interpretation of a trench which runs parallel to, and close to, the south wall of the castle. This trench must, I think, be accepted as having been made simultaneously with, or subsequently to, the building, for it evidently bears relation to the great gate and to an otherwise unprotected wall, of which it formed an outer defence. Sir John Maclean calls this a moat. If this means no more than a defending ditch I am of his opinion, but if a moat should hold water the term is inapplicable, for the fosse is on such a slope that water never could have remained in it. As to the camp theory, it may be observed that there are undoubted remains of a camp within a quarter of a mile, close to the church, and it is unlikely that two camps would have been constructed in such proximity.
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Fig. 1.—Tintagel Castle as represented by Norden, 1584-1600.
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Fig. 2.—Tintagel Castle from 25-inch Ordnance Map
I insert a drawing ([p. 62]), to which I think much interest attaches. It represents the castle as it was about the year 1600—roughly speaking, 300 years ago. It is a copy made by photography of a print in ‘Norden’s Speculi Britanniæ Pars,’ a book now in the British Museum, formerly in the Royal Library. It is dedicated to James I., and appears to have been written at the end of the sixteenth century. The date 1584 has been doubtfully assigned to it: we may safely refer it to the end of the sixteenth century. Norden was born in 1548 and died in 1626. He was Surveyor of Woods to James I., and evidently regarded architectural accuracy more than pictorial effect. The drawing shows the landward part as extending further seawards than at present, while it indicates a place where parts of the insular buildings had recently been engulfed. The great gateway on the mainland is entire; the keep and the lower court nearly so; while the relation of the three as parts of the same building, presumably built at the same time, is unmistakable. The buildings on the island are much as they are now.