Walk Le Morte d'Arthur, Camelot to the western shore

The last road west

A king rides west to hold a kingdom that is already falling to pieces in his hands. Two hundred and ten miles through legendary Somerset and Cornwall to a bare shore, where a sword goes into the water and no one returns crowned.

Thomas Malory wrote in prison and settled a question for good: Camelot, he says, is “in English Winchester.” From there the route follows the legend west. It goes to Glastonbury, long taken for Avalon, on to Exeter and over Bodmin Moor to Dozmary Pool, one of the lakes where Excalibur is said to have gone back into the water, then to Tintagel, where Arthur was conceived.

It ends at Camelford, where tradition places the last battle of Camlann on the River Camel, and finally at Land's End, looking out towards drowned Lyonesse. Malory measures in day-journeys and broken spears, not miles, so the 210 miles here follow the old roads between the places the legend is tied to. William Caxton printed the book in 1485.