Anger grows over 'English' Heritage's cultural vandalism!

News From Kernow Matters To Us:

Hundreds of Cornish people condemn 'English' Heritage as news of desecration spreads across social media and the wider internet! 

Action by 'English' Heritage condemned as far afield as Australia by Australian Cornish diaspora who describe this as 'official vandalism'!

Cornwall's name was first recorded in a place-name, Durocornouio, 'fortress of the Cornish', around 400 AD, nearly 500 years before the name England was first recorded as 'Englaland' and the English people arrived.

This week, many were deeply shocked when BBC Radio Cornwall announced that the inappropriately named 'English' Heritage have installed a sculpture of a Merlin in our Cornish Tintagel Castle, which is owned by absentee landlord Charles, Duke of Cornwall who instructs 'English' Heritage to manage the site for him.

This will be nothing but 'false' history and in so doing will diminish our heritage further.

No doubt it will enhance the tourist numbers for a season or two but at the cost of further denuding the Cornish cultural and historical context of this location.

It's been fairly well shown by the archaeological excavators over many years that Tintagel was a seasonal or ceremonial seat of the Royal House of Dumnonia between c.400 and c.700 AD.

But where at Tintagel do 'English Heritage tell people anything about these kings?

Is there even a mention of them?

In this way, Cornish history gets sidelined while 'English' Heritage concentrates on dumbed-down populist trash that they think will attract the punters.

Meanwhile, none of them get to find out even the slightest fact about Gwrvawr, Tudwawl, Kynvawr, Constantine, Erbin, Gerent I, Cado, Peredur, Theudu or Gerent II, our Kings who were most likely associated with the site.

Or were we not supposed to have a Kingdom in 'English' Heritage's version of British history?

The misuse of Cornish sites for mass tourism re-inventions of a Disney Anglo-centric vision of our Country is not limited to Tintagel.

The National Trust, who unlike 'English' Heritage refuse even to use our language, hold 'Easter bunny hunts' at the scene of many of our ancestors' death by corporate manslaughter at Wheal Levant and we have the approriation of the Methodist 'Tom Bowcocks Eve' about simple Cornish Christian faith reduced to something trivial about a fictional cat in Mousehole.

The recognition of the Cornish in 2014 should be extended to protection of our iconic sites and Cornish stories or the alienation of the Cornish which mass tourism has brought will continue unabated.

Perhaps mass tourism wants not only to use Cornish housing as second homes and holiday lets but to appropriate our history and culture as well?

Cornwall's newest campaigning organisation 'Kernow Matters to Us' (KMTU) has written to 'English' Heritage calling for an urgent meeting to discuss this disgrace. Several members of KMTU met with senior representatives of the 'English' Heritage quango last year resulting in assurances being given about concerns over Cornwall's pre English heritage and history.

John, Teresa, Craig, Tony, Matt, Mike, Clive & Samuel

Elected Members of the KMTU Steering Group

With thanks to Cornishmen Timothy James and Craig Weatherhill (Cornish archaeologist, historian and author)

'English' Heritage's announcement: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/search-news/merlin-carving-tintagel