On the way to Trebarwith along the cliffs--and Trebarwith is a narrow rocky opening up which the tide rushes with tremendous force--are quarries. It is strange to see men, with the carelessness of long habit, walk to the very edge of the cliff, lie down and, with their legs hanging over, feel with their feet for the rough ladder that leads down the rock-face to the quarry opening; or to see them stand on a plank that juts out over the sea, and is maintained in its position by a chunk of rock, casually adjusted. If the plank should give, or the rock roll aside! But a man stands there from morning till night loading and unloading slates.
Inland from Tintagel is Camelford, with its local tradition of a battle. At Slaughter Bridge, near Worthyvale, one and a half miles from Camelford, fragments of armour, ornaments of bridles, weapons, have been found, and in 823 a battle was certainly fought at some place then called Gafulford between the Saxons of Devon and the Celts of Cornwall, a battle in which the Cornish were defeated. May not this unknown Gafulford be Camelford? Writers have suggested that this may have been the scene of Arthur's last battle; but the weight of tradition is against this theory, a more likely place having been pointed out in Scotland.
While on the subject of the legendary British king, it would be interesting to see a supposed feasting-chamber, which from before the time of Henry VIII. was known as Arthur's Hall. South-west of Brown Willy, it is about five miles from Camelford, in the parish of St. Breward. It appears at present as a pit hollowed out in a light sandy soil. This excavation, which is 159 ft. long, is enclosed by an earthen bank with slabs of granite about 7 ft. high, placed evenly on the inner side. The absence of true walls makes it doubtful whether it was roofed over, but it may have had a self-supporting skeleton roof, covered with a web of branches or with sods.
As is so often the case in Cornwall, the Camelford church is at some distance from the place to which it ministers, being, indeed, a mile and a half away at Lanteglos. In the churchyard is a celebrated stone with an inscription in eleventh-century Saxon capitals: "ÆLSELTH & GENERETH WROHTE THYSNE SYBSTEL FOR ÆLWYNEYS SAUL & FOR HEYSEL." About a quarter of a mile from the church is the well-known entrenchment called Castle Goff, with a single rampart and ditch.