Stop this Disneyfication of our coastline | Patrick Barkham

Our coast is seen as contemporary common land, the last wild place. 'Selling' it with something as attention-seeking as Tintagel's 'Arthur' sculpture shuts down the imagination

Sculpture by the seaside can always be expected to divide opinion, but English Heritage is inviting charges of Disneyfication by plonking a bronze vision of King Arthur on to the headland at Tintagel, Cornwall.

It's already tried to placate Cornish nationalists by insisting that Rubin Eynon's statue is not necessarily King Arthur but relates to traces of dark ages kingly feasting found around Tintagel. Still, I fear an uprising in Cornwall, especially as the statue follows English Heritage's carving of the face of "Merlin" into the granite cliffs below Tintagel castle.

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