Additional information
Terrain
- Well-used paths, several stiles
Landscape
- Steep-sided, green hills
Dog friendliness
- Mixed farming: reasonable freedom
Parking
- Cadbury Castle car park (free), south of South Cadbury
Toilets en route
- None on route
About the walk
Cadbury Castle was a military stronghold for over 4,000 years. The ditches and earth walls first rose in the Stone Age, and were extended in the Bronze Age. In the Iron Age it became the capital of the Durotinges tribe, who gave their name to Dorset. Here they built a town of wood, willow-wattle... and thatch and held out against the Romans. The Romans won in the end: they burnt down the hilltop town in around AD 70. The Saxon, Ethelred the Unready, repaired the fort against the Vikings. Again it became a wartime capital, replacing Ilchester between 1009 and 1019. Coins were minted here, and labelled 'CADANBYRIC'. The local belief that Cadbury is indeed King Arthur's Camelot was first recorded in 1542 – more than 1,000 years after King Arthur. However, it was supported by excavations in the 1960s, which showed that, at the very time of the legendary King Arthur, the walls were rebuilt in timber and stone. Some of this stonework is visible on the left as you return to the track down off the hill. A large and kingly timber hall rose on the hilltop. Finds of pottery imported from the eastern Mediterranean indicate a place of wealth and good taste. In this wooden hall the various strands of legend converge. We can imagine rich tapestries hanging from the panelled walls, and below them the court intrigues and amours, described by the 15th-century Sir Thomas Malory. It's even easier to see Queen Guenevere and her ladies riding out along Corton Ridge to gather may-blossom. But at the end of a short mid-winter's day, in the darkness under the trees, the pre-Christian, hollybearing Green Knight of the anonymous Gawain Poet comes striding up the long earthen ramp. And if he did exist, it was very possibly from here that Arthur and his knights went forth to the battle of Mons Badonis, which may have been at Bath, to conquer the Saxon; and later to defeat at the bloody battle of Camlann. Like most of the limestone hillocks of Somerset that made such fine forts, Cadbury has a wide view over the Levels. The viewpoint cairn was raised at the Millennium; in accordance with the Arthurian environment, the places indicated are mostly mystic and invisible. The eye of faith and legend sees behind the horizon to Stonehenge, Avebury and Tintagel. But in winter, the actual eye can trace the possible route of Arthur's final journey, through the flooded fields of the Somerset Levels. Legend would have it that three queens in a black barge carried him through the high water to Glastonbury, on Avalon Isle, knowing his wound was a deadly one. And there he supposedly rests, hidden in the hill, waiting to be called to defend Britain in her hour of need.
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Somerset
Somerset remains rural and unspoiled, and ever popular areas to visit are the limestone and red sandstone Mendip Hills rising to over 1,000 feet, and by complete contrast, to the south and southwest, the flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. Another popular spot, the Quantocks, once the haunt of poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, are noted for their gentle slopes, heather-covered moorland expanses and red deer.
