Another day of heavy rain forced us to look for somewhere indoor to visit and so we decided to visit the Arthurian centre at Slaughterbridge on the banks of the River Camel. Slaughterbridge stood at an important ford across the river and therefore was an important strategic site. The name of the village gives a good indication that this is the site of a battle, in fact, its two battles. The first was the battle between Arthur, King of Cornwall and Mordred his nephew, who was in rebellion and took place according to records in 537. The second was in 823 when the Anglo-Saxons under Egbert of Wessex defeated the army of Cornwall and Wessex took control of Cornwall. Numerous artefacts of dark-age weapons have been found on the site, showing this certainly was a battlefield.
On the site, there has also been the discovery of a 13th-century village and an 18th-century garden, but perhaps the most controversial finding is a dark-age stone (c540) found by the river which has both Latin and Ogham (ancient Irish language) inscriptions. The latter is almost unreadable due to erosion, but the Latin inscription has been interpreted by some as reading ‘Here lies Latin(us) the son of Arthur the Great’. An alternative translation and interpretation have read as ‘ Here lies Latinus, the son of Macarius’. Neither the less it is an interesting artefact as it is one of the few gravestones found in Britain that have both Latin and Ogham inscriptions together.
The exhibition and information are very good as they do not seek to verify the legends of King Arthur, merely to present what is known from historical and other sources and to let the visitor make up their own minds about what they believe is true and what is fantasy. My personal conclusion, Arthur was a Celtic War-leader, in the period when the Anglo-Saxons began to enter Britain. He fought to protect the western lands of the British Celts and was to a large degree successful as the Anglo-Saxons didn’t finally gain control of Cornwall till many years after his death.
