When a retired university professor allowed his mind to wander during a recent lecture, he may have stumbled upon the answer to a question that has puzzled scholars for more than 1,000 years.
Shrouded in historical fact and mythical legend, tales of King Arthur and his round table have enchanted generations but the location of Camelot — the castle and associated court — has never been found, Professor Peter Field believes that it was in Yorkshire.
“I was looking at some maps in a lecture about the Roman occupation of Britain and suddenly all the ducks lined up,” he said. “I believe I may have solved a 1,400-year-old mystery.
“I looked at the arrangement of places and thought good heavens, this Camulodunum is on the road to York — and York’s the place the Britons had tried to control if they were to stop the Anglo-Saxon invasion.”
Professor Field, 77, believes that an ancient site near Huddersfield could unlock the mystery. The Slack Roman fort at Outlane is on the old Roman road linking Chester and York and would have been the perfect strategic stronghold for Camelot.
Advertisement
Professor Field, who retired from Bangor University in 2004, after almost 40 years, came to his conclusion after a process of elimination. There were two Camulodunums in Roman Britain: one in Colchester and one in Slack. But in AD500 — at the time it could have been Camelot — the Essex site would have been behind enemy lines.
The gathering point for Britons who wanted to resist the Anglo-Saxons would have been Chester, and the point that they needed to hold was York. The Slack site is on the road to both.
Camulodunum, meaning “the fort of the God Camul”, would have been reduced to Camelot.
Simon Keegan, editor of North West Business Insider, spent years perusing ancient texts and came to the same conclusion as Professor Field in his book Pennine Dragon. “When I tell people that I conclude King Arthur was from the Yorkshire area, they are normally shocked, saying: ‘I thought he was from Cornwall’.”
The only dissenters are the Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society, which has been digging in the area for years and found nothing linked to the Arthurian legend.