Archaeologists in Huddersfield have rejected claims that the site of King Arthur’s mythic Camelot may have been located on moorland on the outskirts of Huddersfield.
They responded after a leading academic in Arthurian literature delivered a lecture in which he located King Arthur’s base at the old village of Slack, near Outlane, in a parcel of land close to the M62 motorway.
Emeritus Professor Peter Field, an Arthurian specialist who taught at Bangor University for 40 years, said Slack was once known as Camulodunum and was a key site on the old Roman road from Chester to York. He said the area boasted several advantages over the south west, where Arthur is traditionally thought to have lived, and “stands out” as a better alternative.
But Sandra Harling, of Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society, said excavations at Slack showed evidence of Roman occupation but nothing later. Carbon dating of wood on the site suggested it was of Roman origin.
A report issued by the society just two months ago states: “It is certain that between the Romans and the present day there is no archaeological evidence, at all, of human occupation of this site, other than for small-scale agricultural purposes.”
The report – The Romans in Huddersfield – A New Assessment – details discoveries made by the Society in 2007 and 2008. Crucially, it says the Roman fort and vicus – or civilian area – at Slack fell into disuse towards the end of the Roman occupation of Britain. What physical evidence there is lies just beneath the surface of top soil. Nothing sits above it.
But Prof Field said a settlement at Slack might have been a tented area, leaving little for archaeologists to pick over.
“I took the trouble to find out what the archaeology was while I was working up my paper, and I’m not at all surprised,” he said.
“When I say ‘Camelot’, I don’t mean something off a film set, with a castle or a city or both, with battlements and moats and drawbridges. I just mean a real place called Camelot that was associated with a probably real war-leader called Arthur. What might have been there comes later, and I very much hope the archaeologists will try to work it out.
“He might have kept a detachment there, who could have been living in tents, which the Roman army made out of leather. Their successors may have, too. How much would that leave for archaeologists to discover?”
Author Simon Keegan first started the debate about Camelot at Outlane in his book Pennine Dragon: The Real King Arthur of the North.
According to his research the old village of Slack, which was home to the structure where Outlane Golf Club and its car park now stand, used to be called Camulod in Roman times.
