Where was King Arthur's Court? Was it named Camelot? Was it at the enormous fortified and refortified hill fort at South Cadbury in Somerset?

Cadbury Castle is the best known and most extraordinary site reputed to be the original site of Camelot.

The hill is beside the village of South Cadbury, which can be found at the end of a lane which leaves the A303 at Chapel Cross. From the summit (about 500 feet above sea level) you can see Glastonbury Tor, and sometimes even as far as Brent Knoll to the north.

The stories of King Arthur ruling at the hill fort of South Cadbury, near the villages of Queen and West Camel, go back to the travelling historian, John Leland. In 1542, having spoken with locals, he was the first to record that there might be a connection between this place and King Arthur.

"At the very south end of the church of South-Cadbyri standeth Camallate, sometime a famous town or castle. . .The people can tell nothing there but that they have heard Arthur much resorted to Camalat." A fuller account in modern English might read: At the south end of South Cadbury church stands Camelot. This was once a renowned town or castle, set on the peak of a hill, and with marvellously strong natural defences . . . Roman coins of gold, silver and copper have been turned up in large quantities during ploughing there, and also in the fields at the foot of the hill, especially on the east side. Many other antiquities have also been found, including at Camelot, within memory, a silver horseshoe. The only information local people can offer is that they have heard that Arthur frequently resided at Camelot.

Local people used to believe that King Arthur and his knights slept in a hidden cave beneath the hill, secure behind gates of iron or gold. When a group of Victorian archaeologists appeared to commence their dig, they were asked by an old man if they meant to dig up the king.

Arthur's Well can be found in the lowest rampart of Cadbury Castle. At night time on Midsummer's Eve, Midsummer's Night and Christmas Eve, King Arthur and his knights are said to ride in the Wild Hunt throughout this land, and water their thirsty horses either here or at another well by the village church of Sutton Montis.

Below the hill they are traces in the landscape of an ancient trackway running in the direction of Glastonbury. This track is known as Arthur's Lane or Arthur's Hunting Causeway, where, in the silent stillness of a wintry night the spectral knights can be heard galloping past on their horses with their baying hounds running in their wake.

The name 'Cadbury' could be a link with Arthur of legend, because the word means Cadwy's Fort. Arthur knew a prince named Cadwy at Dunster. Perhaps, this was the same Cadwy.

To modern readers, the word 'castle' suggests a stone built medieval fortress with towers, drawbridges and battlements. But this Cadbury in question, while being a castle, was not of this sort of construction.

The fortified hill itself was the castle. Camelot would not have been anything like the buildings of romance legend. There is no reason at all why this site could not have been the very place where Arthur ruled.

But what is the evidence for this?

Archaeological research began when the Rev James Bennett, rector of South Cadbury, carried out the first excavations in 1890. He cut a trench through a high rampart, and concluded, rightly, that the layers of construction had been built up over time. Bennett and his helper dug a pit down from the summit into the hill.  He uncovered a large stone, which they raised to find nothing beneath but a larger stone.

In 1913 St. George Gray undertook another excavation, which uncovered Iron Age objects from before the Roman conquest. When part of the hill was ploughed in the 1950's, flints and potsherds turned up on the upturned soil. These were identified by Raleigh Radford was being the same as those found on an earlier excavation at Tintagel. This discovery was significant because it meant that someone of wealth and power had lived at Cadbury at the time of Arthur.

Following Leyland's writings, in 1965, the Camelot Research Committee was set up to excavate large areas of South Cadbury. They discovered that the fort had been re-fortified in post-Roman times, probably in the 5th or 6th Centuries. The ramparts had been reinforced with large quantities of dressed masonry from other derelict Roman buildings. Raised wooden walkways allowed access into the hill fort.

At the south-west corner was a wooden gate-house through which passed a cobbled roadway of 10 feet in width. The remains of a large timber feasting hall, 63 feet in length by 34 in width, with an internal partition towards the east end were discovered at the centre of the excavated site.

Large amounts of imported Mediterranean pottery scattered over the floor and in the postholes allowed the archaeologists to date the site to the 5th and 6th Centuries. Some smaller buildings in the surrounding area were also uncovered, but their date of origin was uncertain.

The whole area probably ceased to be occupied in the early 7th century, and yet there was also extensive evidence that the fort was used in later times. The archaeologists discovered an unfinished cruciform Saxon church building dated from when the fort was one of King Aethelred's burghs.

The artefacts found point to the hill as being at the heart of a wealthy trading network, like Tintagel had been. The sheer size of the hill fort at South Cadbury suggests that it was occupied by an important British chieftain, and probably a high-king, such as Arthur.

The name may originally come from Cado who was an early 6th Century king of Dumnonia. As Cadbury lay within the kingdom of Dumnonia, it is possible that this residence was a royal palace and capital of such a king as Arthur . . . if not of Arthur himself.