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Thank you very much indeed.

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I've had no idea if this is going to go completely wrong.

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I don't normally use slides and I just sort of say whatever comes into my head.

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So I'm going to have to kind of stick to some sort of a script, but I'm not sure if this

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is going to go wrong or whatever.

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Anyway, for those who don't know I am, I am called Graham Phillips, but my friend

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just got me Graham Phillips.

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The thing here is that I can tell you about myself.

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I had a very, very wise grandmother and there's probably a lot of people sort of get there

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intuition or they inherit whatever they do from somebody.

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In my case it's my maternal grandmother, very wise woman.

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And I was just thinking over this afternoon actually because you know it's been rain in all day.

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She always used to say she had these very wise saying,

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if have you take your umbrella out, it won't rain.

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And if you don't take it out, it'll rain.

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And she was right.

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So the burners are which.

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Anyway, what I'm going to be talking about is King Arthur.

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These books here are three of the kind of our theory and things I've investigated over the years.

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The one on there over there is about Merlin and the discovery of avalanin in the new world.

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Basically that's all about a possible voyage that Merlin made to the island of avalanin,

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which could have been a report of a very early transatlantic journey.

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This one over here, the challenge of Made Delane, is basically all about a cut that could have been the real historical holy grail that I went in search of.

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So that's another kind of our theory and link thing.

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And in the end years ago I wrote a book with another guy called Martin Keepman called King Arthur the true story,

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which came at the early 90s, which basically looked into the myths and legends surrounding Arthur.

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And if there was any real truth behind it, but the books that I've just had published is called the Lost Tomb of King Arthur.

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And it basically chronicles the search for, well obviously Arthur's tomb, but he's Camelot.

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And he's, and was an excaliber, all the legends that make up the King Arthur story.

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It was an investigation into whether these could possibly have been based on historical truth.

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So I shall now go to the next thing.

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It worked. Right.

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That there is the castle at Wittington in the Welsh border in the county of Schrobshire, central England basically.

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Except isn't the centre England because it's something the Welsh border, but sort of centre of centre Britain type of thing.

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That, I'm not going to go into that now. That's just to give you some idea of the things I've investigated.

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That place I believe was the historical grail castle in the medieval Arthurian romances.

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The earliest Arthurian romances written in the 1112 hundreds.

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Basically say that the Holy Grail was catch in a place called the White Castle in the White Town.

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Now that place Wittington Castle is known as the White Castle locally.

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It's referred to that in the Middle Ages because of its light coloured stone.

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And Wittington, the town, actually is the early English for literally White Town.

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So that is where I believe that the Holy Grail myth at least in the Middle Ages began.

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Now, so that's in Schrobshire, which is the reason I'm mentioning this is because my theory is that King Arthur had a lot to do with Schrobshire rather than the south west of the country.

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Glass-thembre and all those places or the north of the country's Scotland and places that other folk have suggested Arthur came from.

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I'm just going to put my point across today. I'm not going to have a go at anybody else's theory.

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I'm just going to say what I believe. But already I had some inkling that the King Arthur story might be connected with the Midlands because of this place.

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That is the cup I believe was the original Holy Grail.

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I'm not going to be talking about this today, but I am going to be talking about that tomorrow and some of the weird mysterious things that came, that became involved in the search that eventually led to that cup.

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It doesn't look like a drinking cup like the cup of the last supper. That's because in the early stories of King Arthur, there was an equal amount of legends associated in the cup that held the blood of Christ with a small scent jar that once belonged to Mary Magdalene, hence the chaneless of Magdalene, as much as there was associating the story of the grail with the cup used at the last supper by Joseph of Adam the Thia.

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But I'll be talking a bit more about that tomorrow. So that ended up being discovered near that castle in the Midlands of England in Shropshire.

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There is me with Brian Blessed searching for this thing many years ago, we were involved in a TV series. He got really quite interested in helping search for Arthur in the Midlands of England and the Holy Grail.

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And as he actually said, when he was standing there, Congress beat our world!

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And the local fisherman kicked us out. Anyway, there's me with Richard and Judy. I'm just trying to sort of prove our famous, I am in case no one dared to be.

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That was me after I've been on there talking about King Arthur some years ago. Richard, the reason I've put that picture up there apart from showing our important I am,

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is that Richard actually comes from that place where the grail was found at Whittington. That's where he actually came from. So he loved that. Judy was just drunk. Anyway, there's me with Michael Wood.

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He probably knew him. He's on TV doing all sorts of things about various historical figures. And he came along to in the search for the grail that I did years ago.

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And he interviewed me for at BBC, she always was doing. And basically he said it was a very interesting old mystery.

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He didn't actually say whether he thought it was true or not. And there I am with Tony Robinson. The great Tony Robinson enjoying a last supper as you can see there.

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He basically decided that that grail cut, although very interesting didn't look like a grail, so it couldn't be the real one. And he then went off somewhere to the Middle East and found some great big golden chalice.

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But doesn't you remember the thing that was in the Anna Jones, the cup of the carpenter? It looks far more simple than the sort of big gold chalice that he wanted. Anyway, it was a nice enough guy. And there we are enjoying a last supper.

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Note the halo around his head. And he was something I've done recently with Jamie Thiexton. Now he's done a whole thing about the grail with me, which was on the forbidden history series, which is our guest to the channel.

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That is on now. Anyone can watch any of these things. I've got them on my own YouTube channel as well, so you can just watch any of these programs about my searches for the grail and Arthur.

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And I also did a whole program about it one hour long last year all about the search for King Arthur.

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And they decided that the King Arthur thing was possibly the best historical evidence for a possible King Arthur that they come across.

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Other people may disagree, but they will die at the end of the show. Right, here we go.

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I think they have promoted myself. And so you know I'm important.

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I will now come on to actually the actual story of Arthur himself. That is the traditional representation of Arthur and his knights that we tend to imagine.

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Knights in shining armor, riding horses, great big lances and fighting in a kind of medieval way.

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However, the reason why Arthur's portrayed like that is because in the Middle Ages the period when most of these stories became really famous, that is how knights and fighting people dressed.

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Now the problem was in the 11 and 1200s, people didn't know what people of many years before had looked like.

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Now according to all the earlier stories, Arthur is supposed to have been a king in Britain around about the year 500 AD, 1500 years ago, fighting the invading Anglo-Saxons from Germany.

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Now the thing is, if he had lived then, he would have looked very different to this, he'd have been more a Roman-style warrior than anything else.

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But because the people at the time only knew about soldiers dressed like that, they assumed, well Arthur must be a king in a golden crown and his knights are people in shining armor.

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And this is the way that the Arthur in story is continued to be told.

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But in reality, if Arthur really had existed around 500 AD, that's what they would have looked like.

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That is the kind of late Roman-style armor that people would have worn at that time. We're talking the dark ages.

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If you imagine the way if you've seen the series, the last kingdom, then that set a bit later on.

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But that kind of thing is more the way that it looked, rather than knight's in shining armor.

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It's just that in the Middle Ages when these stories became popular, nobody actually knew what they'd look like in those days.

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Now the next picture, that's what people tend to think of Camelot, is like Arthur rule from this magnificent city, the Greatest City in England, which is called Camelot.

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And that's the general idea of it. It's this great big Gothic castle with turrets and settlements.

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But these went built until the Middle Ages until 11, 1200s and later, if Arthur really had been a warrior who lived at the time that the story's salived,

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not only would he have looked like one of those warriors I showed you before, but his fortifications would have been fast in Paleno, would have looked like that.

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That is a reconstruction of a Roman fort in the length called the Nia Coventry in Central England.

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And basically they were ramparts, built of earth and ditches outside and on top were put wooden stock haze and wooden gatehouses.

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That is the kind of thing that you would have found Arthur living in, if you like, or at least one of his fortifications, 1500 years ago, not the huge Gothic castle.

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And again, the reason why he's portrayed now as living in a huge Gothic castle fighting with night and armour is because that's what people knew at the time that the famous Arthurian story was written.

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Now, the real Arthurian period, who's he fighting against?

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Now, that is Britain as it was at the time that Arthur lived.

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Just to give you a bit of a background, in 410 AD, the Romans who had ruled Britain for centuries basically left the Roman armies left.

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And by the late 400s, the Western Empire, the Roman Empire for all intents and purposes in Western Europe, completely collapsed.

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Now, this meant that Britain, who enjoyed the security of the Roman legions for absolutely French ways, for three or four centuries, so in our centuries, they now were left defenseless.

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And although a Roman way of life continued in this country for a number of years, for a number of decades, other people began to take advantage of the situation.

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They included Irish raiders who came across the Irish Sea and raided the western of the country.

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The Romans had never invaded Scotland. It was too mountainous, too difficult for them to control.

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They built Hadesians, war in the north of England, and then what happened was that the Picts, the people of Scotland, cross-hadesians, war and started raiding in the north.

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But the biggest and greatest threat that the Britain's face at this time was from across the sea from the angles and the Saxons and the dunes.

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Now, the dunes of people we don't hear so much about because they eventually merged with the Saxons, but you can see that the Saxons and the angles came from north Germany and Denmark, and they settled in the east of Britain.

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Now, what we are told is that Arthur, around about the year 500 AD, is the person who is fighting against all these various invaders.

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He's trying to get rid of the Irish, who are invading in the west, the Picts are invading in the north, and he's trying to get rid of the Anglo Saxons are invading in the east.

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And the people he's leading are what the known as the Roman Arno Britons or the Kelts, the people who used to live in this country all around this country.

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Eventually, many years later, the Anglo Saxons took over all of what is now England, which is named after them Angoland and the Britons were pushed westwards into Wales.

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Now, the next picture shows you the situation that existed at the time Arthur is said to have lived.

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These kingdoms here in the east, the are in italics, are all the Anglo Saxons where the Britons, which is Arthur's people, are all in the west, the Saxons and the angles are in the east.

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Now, we are told in all the Arthurian stories and the Middle Ages that Arthur's greatest battle was as a place called Baden.

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Now, we're not told exactly where this was, but most historians tend to think it was in the city of Bath, because Baden or Batham was the old British name for Bath.

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It was made in the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the

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western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western

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part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part of the western part

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most of these places now the name of counties in Wales for example but powers which today is a small

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county in the middle of Wales was once a large British Celtic kingdom that covered most of central England

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and it is that kingdom which also included shropsia where the town of Wittington is where

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either associated with the grail story so this is kind of what got me looking in that area for

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a possible association with King Arthur now from the archaeological point of view one thing to say I mean

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firstly of what first of all you might say well come on Arthur is just made up his knee

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I mean he fights dragons he rescues damsels in distress he you know it's it's made up

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sure there's magicians in it which is well obviously that Arthur is an invention of the mid-laid

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but fascinatingly many centuries before those what the known as Arthurian romances were written

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there is a story well a account of King Arthur that was written in around about

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eight ten to eight thirty a.d. by a British monk called Nenius now he's writing at least

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four centuries before the earth first of these Arthurian romances which for tri Arthur fighting dragons

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and so forth were ever written Nenius was a monk who lived somewhere probably in north Wales

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and he writes about Arthur but he doesn't have him doing any of these amazing and weird and wonderful

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things he simply betrays him as a down to earth British warrior fighting against the Anglo-Saxons

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he tells us that his greatest battle was at Baden which I discussed the moment ago he also tells

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that he fought a number of battles that seemed to have been all over the country which would make

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sense which we know he has to afford against the picks he has to afford against the Irish and the Anglo-Saxons

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and he but he doesn't talk about him any fanciful way the only fanciful thing he does say

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is he says that the battle of Baden he defeated the Anglo-Saxons but only he was the person who was

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fighting on the British side and people said well that's just mad actually just go around

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you know destroying all these Saxons on his own well it's clearly not meant in that cat in

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that they're in that context he's in other words he was probably the only British leader or general

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with his forces that happened to afford at that particular battle so basically he tells it in a

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very down to earth factual way unfettered by myth and elaboration so when you've got a monk

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writing many years before saying that Arthur was an historical figure you've got the kind of possibility

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that he was but there again Arthur is said to have lived even 300 years before Nenius wrote his work

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so let us have a look and see if it's possibility that Arthur might have ruled from

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as we're told later this magnificent magnificent city now he's said to have ruled a place called

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Camelot well one would say we'll just look at the map and find a place called Camelot well

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there isn't anywhere called Camelot but interestingly in the earliest references to King Arthur

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he's his capital city said to have ruled from this magnificent city the best and most powerful

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in Britain and the richest but it's not called Camelot it's not given an aim at all it seems

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that other time these tales are written down people are even forgotten what the name of this

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place was because it was the time called the Dark Ages after the Romans had left when law

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an order in Britain broke down very few people were keeping written records why because they had

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nothing to write on paper manufacturer was a complicated thing the Romans could do it but once

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you've got people going back to living in mud hurts basically there was hardly anything to write

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on except for in monasteries and monks tended to write about religious things and there was nothing to

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write with you trying just write with charcoal and say along it last the making of ink was another

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thing that tended to go with the end of the Roman Empire and for this and a whole host of reasons

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very few records have survived and the period after is said to have lived so that's possibly

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why the name of these capital was forgotten but it wasn't called Camelot for a start because the

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name Camelot was invented by a well a French poet by the name of Cretium de Tuan and he wrote in

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about 1190 and he used the word Camelot in a poem to rhyme with the name Lancelot

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so it's very similar to the Monty Python's and Spamelot or he likes to push the Pramelot

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so whatever it was called it was unlikely to have been Camelot so okay I decided let us have a look

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archologically for what was most likely to have been the capital of Britain at the time that

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Arthur is said to have lived all the most important city the biggest cities at the end of the

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Roman Empire in Britain were London Lincoln and York in the East they were all overtaken by the

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angles who took Lincoln Saxons who took London and the pigs from Scotland who took York

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which left a place less now and called Rocksitter or Viriconium to the Romans in the center of Britain

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and this seems to have become the effectively the capital of Britain if you like at the end of the

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Roman period now unlike London and Lincoln and York which is still thriving cities today where you

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can go and walk across the streets knowing that underneath these office blocks and roads and houses

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like Roman cities Rocksitter is totally different it was never really occupied after the

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Arthurian shortly after the Arthurian period it just became deserted and the ruins of

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Viriconium it old walls and foundations stones still survive in open farmland just outside a little

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village called Rocksitter which is in shop share very close to that place

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Wittington Castle the White Castle and the White Town that are already associated with the Holy Grail

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so I thought wow this could be in other words if there was an historical camera if Arthur did

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exist and he ruled from the most powerful city in the country about 500 AD the most likely place

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for him to have done so was Rocksitter in my humble opinion where I bought it on the actually I

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got quite annoyed with people just agree but that's not the point the fact is that's what it looks

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like now you've got basically the ruined walls and because it stands open farmland and it's not

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got a city on top of it it's meant that archaeologists have been able to do a lot of excavation there

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and what they found and this is amazing after 410 AD when the Roman legions left joined the 400s

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gradually slightly but surely the Roman towns became abandoned they went easily defended

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without proper train troops and the people have written tended to go back to fortified dwellings

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at the top of hills hill forts as they know more easily defended most cities and Britain were

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being abandoned but at this time very aconia as it was called by the Romans Rocksitter was not

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only continued to be occupied but it was massively refortified and it exactly the time Arthur is said

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to have lived and this is the latest archaeological work that's been carried out there and exactly

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the time Arthur is said to have lived a palace of some kind a residence was built in the center

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of this city and this was thought by archaeology archaeologists to be the palace or the residents of an

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important warlord somebody who was immensely powerful and this these walls here will once part of an old

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Roman bathhouse and recreational complex but then were turned into this Roman style villa where this

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important warlord lived so going back to the actual period that's the Roman period that's what

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would have been there in the middle that thing there you can see the white thing in the middle is

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this bathhouse complex of which those walls are what survives and that is in the wrong bloody place

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sorry about that um pair of the walls it would have basically well it's got one reason I put that

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there I'm remember now the reason I put that there is because where is the Romans would have surrounded

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their cities by these huge walls by the time that Arthur is kicking around about 70 or 80

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90 years later after the Roman legions left they refortified that area with wooden stockage something like

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that and the palace that was at the center this residence of an important warlord

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would have been a Roman style villa rather than the graphic castle we know today but as I say

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the defenses were like I mentioned earlier so that is a artist's impression that I had done by a

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guy called Dan Shadrake who is probably the the country's leading expert on arms and armaments

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and fortifications of the early dark ages for post-Roman period and he says if Arthur lived at that time

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that's what his fortifications would look like that's what Camelot would have looked like

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a example called Camelot of course but that's what his capital would have looked like from the

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outside and that's possibly the kind of way that he would have dressed so there's your King

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historical King Arthur if you like right we go back to these these uh these uh the kingdom that Britain

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was divided into very cony and rock sitter wasn't the capital of Britain as such to start off with

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it was the capital of the kingdom of palace and obviously somebody who ruled from there around

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500 AD was in a very powerful position now could this have been the historical Arthur

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God why is that there okay right okay and there why I've put that there I told you I didn't

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like using slides it does my editing right we can see next to palace we've got Gwyneth right

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let us firstly decide who it is who is actually ruling from rock sitter around 500 AD

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was his name Arthur well as I said very few records survive of that period but the

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was a monk whose name was Gildas who around the year 545 wrote a tirade against his fellow

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countrymen for squabbling amongst themselves and letting the Anglo Saxons have superiority

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and start to overtake the country again by the mid 500s when he was alive and he writes about

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somebody who he respected in his childhood somebody who seems to have ruled from virachonium from

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rock sitter in the capital of palace at the time Arthur is said to have lived and he refers to this

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person only under a title a battle name called the bear now many individuals soldiers in particular

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at the time and Celtic tradition would be given an honorific title of an animal either a

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imaginary animal or beast like a dragon or a griffin or a real animal at some way expressing their

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proud prowess in battle a cunning person would be the fox a strong person the lion and so forth

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and yes they did know about lions and tigers because the Romans have brought them over for the

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arenas so they had all these different animals and very often a king or a leader would be given

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the name or a battle name if you like a animal now the battle name of the man who ruled from

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palace when when this monk guildess was a child around the time Arthur said to have lived he refers to

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him as ursus he's writing in Latin and ursus means the bear so this guy was called the bear he actually

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had a nephew who ruled the adjacent kingdom Gwyneth and his name was the dragon he in fact

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after Arthur's period or the post-revent period Gwyneth became a very powerful

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kingdom took up a pretty much all of Wales and the dragon which was the battle name originally

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of this guy called maglicunus who is the nephew of this man called the bear he handed his title

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on the dragon to his successor and their successors and eventually when they became kings of a large

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part of Wales the dragon emblem ended up on the flag of Wales and that's why it's there now

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and in fact many people with if you wonder why on the coat of arms of many medieval knights and

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also today in heraldry you've got these various animals it all goes back to this tradition of naming

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people naming warriors given them the honorific title of animals okay we're going back to the bear

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so the bear is the guy who's ruling in central England in Paris he's nephew maglicunus

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the dragon is ruling in Gwyneth this is the place where maglicunus ruled from this is a basically

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the the the center part of an extinct volcano called a volcanic plug it's a sheer cliff and on top

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of there there was a fortification which was almost impregnable that this guy maglicunus

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the dragon ruled from and that is on the north coast of Wales at a place now called de Gannway

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de Gannway Castle and right now I know I got that brilliant thing there

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huh I'm never going to give a talk with slides again anyway right I've now got to explain a little

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bit about about the bear and who he was right you're going to say okay who was this bear what was

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his real name and I thought let's just hope that the guy who's who rules from the raconium

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so you can see Kair de Gannway up there that's where the dragon rules from the bear is uncool is

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ruling from the raconium now he seems to be the most powerful king in the country on a cat

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of the fact that he has the most powerful well-dissended city okay okay this guy from the raconium

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he's called the bear I looked I went to the British library where there is a manuscript that

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refers to it's a genealogy a a list a family tree of the kings who rule from that part of the country

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at the time after he said to have lived and afterwards and I thought come on he's

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there he's got to be Arthur it wasn't the bears real name was Owen so I thought oh well I thought at

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least I've got something because this man is the most powerful man in the country at the time

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after he said to have been the most powerful man in the country and he rules from the most powerful

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city and fine yeah yeah I mean maybe I found the man okay his name was Owen it wasn't really Arthur

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but it's somebody upon whom the legend of Arthur might have been based but it was then I discovered

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that the name bear in original brithomic which was the language spoken by the Britons at the time

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and still preserved in modern Welsh incidentally the name for a bear is Arthur a RTH so

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it's very possible that the name Arthur could have developed into the name Arthur over the

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years it's more than the lyrical sounding and so then I thought hold on wait a minute

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Arthur is said to have ruled from the most powerful city in the country around 500 AD the man who

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rule from the most powerful city in the country around 500 AD would have been known as Arthur

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but that's pretty good you know I mean maybe we have found an historical Arthur here

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I'm number a lot of people turn around said oh no Arthur came from the name Arthur it's a Roman

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name there's no evidence for that at all it sounds less like it than the name Arthur anyway I've

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got something to go with so we'd go back to his nephew that the dragon according to the medieval

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story isn't even earlier well story is about Arthur he eventually meets his end not by being beaten

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by the Anglo Saxons or the picks or the Irish but by a rebellion that's led by his treacherous

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nephew Modred or morered as he's more well known in the medieval times Modred is nephew of Arthur

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who overthrows him in a place called the Battle of Camelam historians know that the man O'In

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who ruled from the iraconium was overthrown by his nephew Maglicunus the dragon

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and the most likely site for the battle between these two people is at a place called Fauden

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I've got it all in there you've got a load of Roman rows that were still being used around 500 and

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it's showing sort of how they had to get round mountains and why is likely that the battle between

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the two of them when Maglicunus the dragon marches out from care to grand way which is his castle

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and moves all the way down to Fauden he goes sort of like round by the coast and then then O'In

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marches out westwards to meet him from Veracronium so do you have to worry too much about that but

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that's just explaining a little bit about why Fauden seems to have been the place where these two

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guys met in battle and we know from what guilders the monk tells us who's writing within living

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memory of these events that not only did Maglicunus overthrow his uncle in battle we also know

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that that that that that that that that oh in died in that battle and Maglicunus pretty much took

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over in Wales okay what we know is from the Arthur story is that both Maordred and Arthur

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killed each other at this final battle of Camelan Maordred dies after dies later

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obviously in this case the historical Maglicunus the historical nephew of O'In didn't die in

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the battle that was maybe something that went on you know put added on later on but we have this same

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thing again that the the tie up between Arthur and O'In is that there were both killed by their own

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nephews O'In was called off he ruled for the most powerful city if that didn't clinch the

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fact that well you know this has got to be the the Arthur at least part of the story was based on

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is the fact that Maglicunus was not the first person to bear the name the dragon they had

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used the handed these names on for successive generations which later became flags or shields

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headredatory symbols mega-cunus is grandfather who was O'In's father was the first one to

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use the title the dragon his real name was an iron but he used the word dragon but he was also known

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as the terrible hedge dragon if you translate the words terrible head dragon into brithomic the

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language spoken at the time and into modern Welsh it translates as uthra-pendragon what's

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Arthur's father called so we've got a man who's named his half ruling from the most powerful

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city in the country whose father is called uthra-pendragon who is overthrown by his nephew

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and all the the right time so they've got where the battle takes place now the actual

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sites where I believe the battle took place or is where most military historians believe that

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the battle took place is at Fordon now the idea is that they think that there's a fort and

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old Roman fort was as reoccupied at this time where O'In's main forces are O'In's horseman

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a down in the bottom right hand corner you've got a river running through it you've got a bridge

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and a Roman road which is where the the forces of maglicuness his nephew are coming along

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and O'In attacks him in this pints movement but basically the whole thing falls apart and he loses

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now the interesting thing is that is the site most likely site for the battle between O'In and

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his nephew in where he was eventually dealt a mortal wound or killed. What's fascinating is

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the oldest reference to the battle of cam land written in the Arthurian stories of the Middle Ages

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is in a story called the Dream of Ronoboy it was a well story written in the 1100s and it

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refers to Arthur's final battle of Camlan it talks about the battle of Camlan and

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it says that the battle of Camlan offers there he's most of this is kind of fanciful but the

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fact is that they've got a set at a place where Arthur is sitting beside a fort on a river now if you

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notice that from what the story ends up figured out O'In's forces will write next to a fort

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in a river which is sim lies by that cross but what's so amazing of most of all is that in this

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oldest story of King Arthur's last battle it is said the Battle of Camlan took place at a somewhere

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called Ride Gross there Ride Gross that's what it's called now you can go there the

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farms called Ride Gross and it means Ford of the cross because they used to be a cross standing

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on a fort which is a river crossing on this little river here so in other words we're O'In

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fought his last battle seems to have been exactly the same place as where the earlier stories

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have Arthur fighting his last battle but what I really think that convinces me that this is where

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the Arthur's last battle was fought is remember the Arthur's last battle was supposed to be

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fought at somewhere called Camlan that river is called the Camlan it's not that far off Camlan

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so we've got all these things that connect him together Arthur being his name roaning from what

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archaeology tells us is the most powerful city in the country he's got a nephew that kills him he

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dies fighting exactly the same place as where Arthur's supposed to fight died of died and he's

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died he's for other his golden to the peasant I mean surely this man O'In who ruled from

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Viriconian that Roman city in the center of England has got to at least have some connection

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with the story of King Arthur now that is the very place where that river Camlan winds and it

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is where archaeologists believe that O'In forties last battle and it's the place I believe

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according to this earliest tale the story the dream of runner boy which talks about Arthur's last battle

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that is where I believe that historical Arthur fell now I have no idea why they're there

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I know I hear that that's there or that or that oh I do know I told you I was no good with this stuff

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right you can forget that and that because I'm not that time to talk about all this but what I have

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got time to talk about is this it's a church now why is that church important that church is

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here land hillith right now you can see where we can see where the raconium is that's this capital

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what it was once the capital of powers but in the year 650 657 I believe if I'm right

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so 150 years after Arthur's time anyway the Anglo Saxons have eventually pushed over to what's

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now Wales taken over all of what's pretty much all of what's now England the kingdom of Mercia

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eventually has a pact a alliance with the kingdom of powers so the Anglo Saxons have a

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alliance with the Britain's the Celtic people of powers to fight the northern the King of North

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umbria because at that time the Northumbrians the most powerful kingdom in Britain that again is

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an Anglo Saxon kingdom eventually the Northumbrians beat a joint powers Mercia and alliance

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an overtake of the raconium that's in 474 in 657 this forces the last of the Britons that are

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in that area to flee into the Welsh mountains into a smaller reduced kingdom of powers

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with their new headquarters at that place my food if I'm pronouncing it right and that now is still

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the name of a Welsh county palace in the central Wales but once it's spread much further to the

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east now the king the last king to rule from the raconium of the last Britain king was a man called

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Kundalin now he died in that battle and but his sister the princess helleth managed to flee

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an eventually settled in Gwent a that place called Lanhillith which basically means Saint helleth

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which is named after a she eventually became a Christian she founded a a a priori and this

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no that there is the little church that still stands on the site that hillith founded this

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priori and it was why she was there that she not only became a nun but she also became a poet

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one of the few female bars there are of that time Welsh poets and she wrote poetry and war

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poems about her family the people had once ruled from the raconium in palace and she writes about the

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death of her brother Kuntalin but what's fascinating is she actually tells us in this poem which

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still survives in something called the Brett Red Book of Hergist which is a collection of Welsh

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manuscripts old medieval and dark age manuscripts that survive in Oxford's Bodleon Library

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and she wrote them here and in this one story she writes about her brother's death who writes

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about the Anglo Saxons over throwing their old capital and burning the city but she tells us where

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Kuntalin her brother is buried but what's most incredible is she tells us that it's a burial site

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where all the earlier kings of palace who ruled from viricodium were also buried one of whom remember

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is Owen the man that as far as I'm concerned anyway from all the evidence was the historical king Arthur

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so where did she tell us it was she says that they are buried at a place called the church's of

358
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baza now very very close just a few miles north of viricodium that are village today called

359
00:45:48,720 --> 00:45:56,960
baza church baza church is a baza she'll eat it's the same place now just on the edge of the village

360
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:04,160
there is this a place called birth hill and a place called birth pool next to it what this

361
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:13,520
actually is is the remains of a earthworks that were in use and being used the limited archaeology

362
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:20,320
that's been taken place there has shown that these were actually occupied about 500 AD and were occupied

363
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:25,920
right way through until the eventual abandonment of western Paris at the time that the Anglo Saxons

364
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:31,600
over took the place and couldn't fill in died there's a hill in the middle with you can probably

365
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:40,320
just make out the rearing bankments and ditches around it and going back to the period around 500 to

366
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:49,200
650 AD this whole area was flooded there wasn't just one pool there the whole thing was surrounded by water

367
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:54,400
and where you can see there it says causeway and causeway that was an island birth hill

368
00:46:54,400 --> 00:47:00,640
linked to the mainland this darker green bit by a causeway or in bankments and another one

369
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:07,120
then linked it to another smaller island called now the enclosure which was also surrounded by

370
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:14,800
a ring of bankments and ditches just to the top right-hand corner so basically you've got these two

371
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:21,840
islands connected to each other and to the mainland by a lake that went surrounded the whole thing

372
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:27,760
and it's known that this was used for religious purposes or some ceremonial purposes in the

373
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:36,240
middle ages sorry in a 1500 years ago because the way the embankments are built the ditch normally

374
00:47:36,240 --> 00:47:41,600
if you're using it for defensive purposes if it's a hill fort the ditch is on the outside of the

375
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:47,440
embankment so that whoever is trying to attack you has to go through a mode but in this case the

376
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:53,600
ditches are in the inside of the embankment so you've got water embankment ditch that doesn't make sense

377
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:59,200
for for something to be built for defensive purposes like a fortification so it's believed to have

378
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:06,080
been used for some sort of ceremonial purposes and in fact the description of the church is a

379
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:13,280
basser that hell is gives in her poem about the death of her brother and the burial site of the

380
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:20,320
kings of Paris totally matches with this and it seems in fact that she is referring I mean there's

381
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:25,920
a picture of it you can see this more easily some of the surrounding embankments and ditches

382
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:33,600
and a part of the hill but this whole area around it going about 1500 years ago was a lake so

383
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:38,400
it's an island in the middle of a lake and they you can see the original lake birth

384
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:43,600
hill the enclosure that's birth pool now but that's all that remains of the original lake so

385
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:52,720
this is seemingly the burial place of the kings of Paris including o in the Manu I believe was

386
00:48:52,720 --> 00:48:59,760
Arthur now what's really fascinating is that we are told he has built his buried specifically in the

387
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:08,640
middle of what's an acre of land that enclosure bit there is approximately an acre in size it was

388
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:18,880
referred to by her as traveils acre I was thinking wow if o in is really the historical king Arthur

389
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:24,080
and and hell is talent hell is or hell and it would be embodnese if hell is his telling us

390
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:29,840
that the kings of Paris were better there and o in is better you know that one of their first

391
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:35,760
kings is better than the enclosure that's Arthur's burial site and I've already got enough evidence

392
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:41,600
as far as I can certain that Arthur and o in would want in the same so all I need to do was to

393
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:50,640
organize an excavation and we can dig him up there's his sword for some reason there's me with

394
00:49:50,720 --> 00:49:58,080
the sword I'm there's a girl on the lake there's a man there's a that again right because I'm

395
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:02,160
this was originally for a two-hour talk you see that's why I'm running through it but I think I'm

396
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:08,240
getting the gist of all this across these guys what I did it was I was able to organize a

397
00:50:08,240 --> 00:50:13,520
geophysics scan of the area unfortunately you can't just dig it up well fortunately I suppose

398
00:50:14,240 --> 00:50:18,560
it's on private land but it's not that's not the problem the farmer was quite happy to have as

399
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:24,320
dig the area but I got the local archaeologist involved and the head archaeologist of the whole

400
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:32,560
of the West Midlands he was on side for Birmingham University but the problem was it's a protected

401
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:38,240
monument and English heritage have to give specific permission for it to be dug and they hadn't

402
00:50:38,240 --> 00:50:42,800
they wouldn't do that but they said you know we can have a geophysics survey with all this kind of

403
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:48,160
equipment you see being used on time team they kind of stuff they used was a the middle they

404
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:52,800
have got ground-sensing radar which does a kind of three-dimensional computer image of what

405
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:57,680
lies under the ground buried without the need to dig and you've got like a glorified metal detector

406
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:07,520
and a bell I got agrory if I had metal detector on the right basically it's magnetometer it

407
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:13,120
records basically what's under the ground if it's metal or anything the conducts and then on the

408
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:18,240
left you've got a as retativity meter that can can basically the resistance of electrical

409
00:51:18,240 --> 00:51:23,440
current underneath the ground and it can tell you the outline of walls and things like that

410
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:29,520
add that lot together and you'll find a grave if there is one and incredibly what happened

411
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:35,200
is that right in the middle this is the area of the enclosure right in the middle of that area

412
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:40,720
the geophysics survey I mean this was being filmed and sponsored by national geographic so we had

413
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:45,680
all the stuff done it all thing filmed and they basically said that right in the middle of

414
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:50,640
this and that this guy by the way Roger White dot to Roger White the guy in the red is the

415
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:55,360
chief archaeologist for the whole of the middle and it's based at Birmingham University the

416
00:51:55,360 --> 00:52:00,640
guy there's headed the geophysics team the other one and he said him this guy he knows what he's

417
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:08,560
talking about I might not but he does and he said smack bang in the middle of this area this

418
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:15,360
acre of land was a circular ditch about six feet across and probably about six feet deep they can

419
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:20,720
tell that the ditch was dug there and then refilled in later by the way that the soil has changed

420
00:52:20,720 --> 00:52:25,840
except with the equipment that they've got and he said there's this circular ditch and in the

421
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:32,080
middle of it there appears to be a large ferris metal object that would appear to be the

422
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:40,000
central boss of a shield now the way that warriors were buried at that time some of them were

423
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:44,160
kind of like a cross between Christian and pagan so they had a number of pagan traditions carried

424
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:50,560
on even though some of them were Christians they would bury a warrior in a circular ditch six

425
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:57,440
feet deep lying on their side with the shield on their arm and this he said was consistent with

426
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:05,360
the kind of burial one would expect of an important cheafton around fifteen hundred years ago and

427
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:12,080
that exact place they never looked there before I said this poem which I think is really important

428
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:18,960
which is preserved at Oxford, Buggley and Library tells us that this is where Owen is buried and

429
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:24,400
I believe that Owen is one and the same as Arthur because of all the reasons I've given you today

430
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:30,480
and he said I think what I'm not saying that Owen is Arthur but I believe that you've found the

431
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:36,480
burial site of a king of palace and in fact hardly any burials of that kind of status have

432
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:42,640
ever been discovered in Britain from that period so that's pretty amazing in its own right so this

433
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:49,360
guy wanted to dig these guys wanted to go ahead with a dig but and there's me looking at the that's the

434
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:57,280
actual the computer image of the what their showing is under the ground and there that white

435
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:04,000
bit is the ditch and that black thing in the middle is what thought to be the shield that's buried

436
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:08,480
in the center of the pit and there's a closer I mean doesn't mean anything to you or I but to the

437
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:15,920
train I that is a ditch and it's the only burial ditch in the center of that place there's no other

438
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:23,120
burial there so it's gotta be Owen or no one that is probably what lies under the ground it's

439
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:29,600
somebody with a shield on the arm and somebody buried in that kind of position now you'd have thought

440
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:38,240
wow he's fanking Arthur they're gonna dig it up but oh no no no no no no no no that's a road no no no

441
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:45,520
English heritage turn ran and said well we don't know it's nothing to do with King Arthur

442
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:51,680
or we don't know it is and we're not gonna allow a dig to go on there and I have been fighting to have

443
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:57,760
an archaeological dig take place there for ages and they won't budge now on the one end they've

444
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:04,080
got a sensible reason they say we don't want a dig because if you dig you destroy evidence and that's

445
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:10,800
too and all the time archaeology is improving to the points where we may not have to dig a tool

446
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:16,240
when they get really much more sophisticated geophysics equipment so they can see what's on

447
00:55:16,240 --> 00:55:21,120
the knees the ground but once it's been dug up you can ever do that so they got some good reasons

448
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:27,200
but because I've published all this stuff because it's been publicized in newspapers and TV shows

449
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:33,120
and everything all over the world people can just go then and dig it up anyway we've got the sponsorship

450
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:39,200
National Geographic we're gonna pay to have the dig done with the top archaeologist is happy to dig

451
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:43,760
then not because he believes in Arthur but because he thinks it might be the burial site of O'N Thang

452
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:52,320
win but no they won't do it they will not have that dig so basically I am now the the position

453
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:57,520
I'm left in at the moment is I am desperately trying to get a dig going because if they don't

454
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:01,760
have one soon the thing's gonna be dug up the only reason I published all this now telling

455
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:06,400
everybody what it was is because we were convinced that they would allow a dig so that wouldn't

456
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:13,120
be anything there to be destroyed so hopefully we will be able to have a dig sometime maybe next spring

457
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:20,480
if if not before if it's not to frozen the ground over the winter maybe before and perhaps finally

458
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:28,480
we'll find the grave of an historical King Arthur but I'll just leave you with one thing and basically

459
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:34,160
what I think the way the English heritage and the love of these academics behave towards me and as I

460
00:56:34,240 --> 00:56:40,000
say I've got the archaeologist archaeologist on site where a lot of historians and a way that a lot

461
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:45,840
of the academics behaved towards me reminds me of another thing that my grandmother used to say

462
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:50,240
when I went ran there on a Sunday afternoon, Sudarthya Scranton sod

463
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:06,160
you

464
00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:36,160
you