I had a week in Cornwall this year in early June, and it's a fantastic place, we were gifted with good weather as well which allowed us to get out and about a lot, inevitably we visited many historic sites including several castles which I can't resist showing a few pics of.
The first castle we visited was Tintagel castle, legendary birthplace of King Arthur. I've been here before, but I was about 8 and I had fond, but vague memories of the place. A return visit didn't disappoint. There isn't a huge amount of the castle itself left, but Tintagel Head is a stunningly beautiful location, with great views, layers and layers of history and a lovely cove with some interesting caves that are easy to explore. It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth it.
The next day we visited St Catherines Castle at Fowey. This is a small example of one of Henry VIII's device forts, it's just a tower and a coupe of gun implacements, however it's free to visit and gives great views over Fowey Harbour.
As we were looking out across the sea my friend noticed a type 45 destroyer on the horizon, it circled round for a bit before heading off. A lucky sighting that added a lot to a great site.
The next day and another castle, this time Restormel Castle, which very much looks like what I imagine a 'standard' castle would look like, even if just the keep remains. The keep was of course once surrounded by a much larger castle and it was at one point the administrative centre of the whole of cornwall.
The final castle of the trip was another Henrician Device Fort, this time at St Mawes which with it's twin Pendennis (which I visited a few years ago but never got around to posting about) guard Falmouth. We didn't go inside this one as there didn't seem to be a lot there for the price and we were a bit short on time.
