Camelford is a small town in north Cornwall on the A39, the Atlantic Highway, and the road runs through its centre rather than around it. In Kernewek it is Reskammel, the ford of the crooked water, a name formed in the twentieth century: the parish was historically Lanteglos and took the name Camelford only in 1934.
The borough
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, granted the town a charter in 1259, and it was a parliamentary borough from 1547 to 1832. In February 1837, between 400 and 500 people protested in the town against the New Poor Law and the workhouse system, a stand that says something about the place.
The Camelot question
Camelford is linked by legend to Camelot and the battle of Camlann, though modern historians refute the connection. The town wears the story lightly, as towns do when the evidence is thin.
Weather and water
On 8 June 1957, 203 mm of rain fell at Camelford in a single day. In July 1988, 20 tons of aluminium sulphate entered the water supply at the Lowermoor Water Treatment Works, an incident the town has lived with ever since. The railway came in 1893 and left in 1966, and the Town Hall of 1806 now serves as the branch library.
Sources
Last checked: 2026-10-11