Tintagel, Cornwall
Tintagel
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 Tintagel
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| Tintagel shown within Cornwall | |
| Population | 1,782 (United Kingdom Census 2011 including Bossiney and Knightsmill) |
| OS grid reference | SX057884 |
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| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | TINTAGEL |
| Postcode district | PL34 |
| Dialling code | 01840 77 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Cornwall |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Tintagel /tɪnˈtædʒəl/ or Trevena (Cornish: Tre war Venydh meaning village on a mountain) is a civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The population of the parish was 1,820 people (2001 census), and the area of the parish is 4,281 acres (17.32 km2). The parish population decreased to 1,727 at the 2011 census. An electoral ward also exists extending inland to Otterham. The population of this ward at the same census was 3,990.
The village and nearby Tintagel Castle are associated with the legends surrounding King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. The village has, in recent times, become attractive to day-trippers and tourists, and is one of the most-visited places in Britain.
Toponymists have had difficulty explaining the origin of 'Tintagel': the probability is that it is Norman French as the Cornish of the 13th century would have lacked the soft 'g' ('i/j' in the earliest forms: see also Tintagel Castle). If it is Cornish then 'Dun' would mean Fort. Oliver Padel proposes 'Dun' '-tagell' meaning narrow place in his book on place names. There is a possible cognate in the Channel Islands named Tente d'Agel, but that still leaves the question subject to doubt.
The name first occurs in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136, in Latin) as Tintagol, implying pronunciation with a hard [g] sound as in modern English girl. But in Layamon's Brut (MS Cotton Otho C.xi, f. 482), in early Middle English, the name is rendered as Tintaieol. The letter i in this spelling implies a soft consonant like modern English j; the second part of the name would be pronounced approximately as -ageul would be in modern French.
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