Castle an Dinas, St. Columb Major

Encyclopedia : C : CA : CAS : Castle an Dinas, St. Columb Major

Castle an Dinas is an Iron Age hillfort near St. Columb Major in Cornwall, UK (Grid reference ) and is considered one of the most important hillforts in the southwest of Britain. It dates from around the second to third century BCE and consists of three ditch and rampart concentric rings, 850 feet above sea level. During the early 1960s it was excavated by Dr. Bernard Wailes of the University of Pennsylvania.

As noted by William of Worcester during his visit to Cornwall in 1478, legend says that the fort was the place where Cador, Duke of Cornwall and husband of King Arthur's mother, met his untimely death.

Miscellany

• The Old Cornwall Society hold their traditional annual midsummer bonfires here on the highest point of the fort.
• From 1916 to 1957 it was the site of Cornwall's largest wolfram mine. Many of the old buildings and workings remain standing.
• It has been the site of a murder in the early twentieth century.
• For two nights during the English Civil War, Sir Ralph Hopton's Royalist troops camped within the rings of the fort.
• According to Cornish historian Samuel Drew, there were reports of ghost armies in the sky above Castle an Dinas around 1798. (If true, most likely an unusual but documented form of mirage.)
• In 1671, John Trehenban, from St. Columb Major, was condemned to be starved to death in a cage within the castel's rings for the murder of two girls.
• Traditionally, Castle an Dinas is the hunting lodge (hunting seat) of King Arthur, from which he rode in the Tregoss Moor hunt. A stone in St. Columb allegedly bears the four footprints of his horse made whilst hunting.

See also

• Castle an Dinas, Penwith

References