This is the story the people of the country-side have been telling from time out of memory. Very learned men have disputed their facts and warred and wrangled over great Arthur’s history, and you must please yourself which side you take, but this is a story of Cadbury Castle, which tradition holds was King Arthur’s Camelot, where that famous hero:
“ ... kept his Court Royall
with his fair Queen, Dame Guinevere the gay:
And many bold Barons, sitting in hall
With ladies attired in purple and pall....”
And it was here, too, that was installed the immortal Round Table, with the chivalrous knights that sat about it.
You will find this Camelot a mile or two from Sparkford station, between Castle Cary and Yeovil, on the main line from Paddington to Weymouth. It is a great rounded hill seared with ancient ramparts and ditches, and crowned by a mound which was King Arthur’s palace.
They will tell you that Cadbury Castle is slowly sinking into the earth; that at one time it was vastly bigger. But they will tell you, too, that King Arthur has not forgotten his old home, and that he and his knights may often be seen galloping round the old fortifications on moonlight nights, mounted on gallant chargers shod with silver shoes.
And should you doubt this, antiquarian records will prove you wrong; for on the hill some years ago, a silver horseshoe was dug up.
From Cadbury a faint path may still be distinguished running towards Glastonbury—you can see Glastonbury Tor from the top of Cadbury Castle—and along this track, if you are lucky, you may sometimes see the great King, a sad expression on his face, his knights with their attendant squires in his train, riding back to fabled Avalon, which is Glastonbury, and his tomb in the abbey there beside that of Queen Guinevere.
It was from Cadbury, when Camelot’s towers crowned the hill, that the knights set out on their quest of the Holy Grail.
You will not find it hard to believe these old legends, if you sit for awhile in the silence and peace of the great earth bulwarks of Cadbury Castle and look out across the pleasing country beneath you. You can almost hear the faint jingle of harness in the air, and the soft whisperings of dead and gone men and women who had looked upon Arthur himself.
Apart from its legendary interest, Cadbury Castle is one of the most remarkable places in all Somersetshire. Four high earth walls surround the hill, the innermost faced with stone. Within the lowest rampart you will find King Arthur’s well; on the hill side strange terraces that were once, they will tell you, shady gardens where fair ladies walked in the cool of a summer’s evening.
The little stream, the Cam, flows from the foot of the hill, and close at hand are the villages of Queen Camel and West Camel, again suggesting the old name of Cadbury.
But Somersetshire is steeped in Arthurian legendary lore. In the far north of the county near Clevedon another Cadbury disputes with our hill the honour of having borne upon it Camelot. And Glastonbury, almost midway between the two, is the very centre of Arthurian romance.
Around the history of the great King has arisen so much controversy that you must read the experts for yourself and make your own choice. And what could provide a more glorious holiday amusement than a quiet journey through this, King Arthur’s own, land on a pilgrimage to the many beautiful places it holds that commemorate in name and tradition the life of the greatest hero of romance in Western literature?
