when we proposed it to english heritage, i never thought they'd accept. but sometimes, the crazy ideas are actually the best ideas. my name is william matthews and, along with laurent ney and matthieu mallie from ney & partners, we were the engineers and the designers of the tintagel castle footbridge. the footbridge reconnects the two sides of the medieval castle built in the 12th century by richard, earl of cornwall. the mainland ward and the island ward were connected by an isthmus of rock which has since eroded away and the bridge recreates that link between the two sides. one of the key drivers behind the project — indeed, it's very raison d'etre — was to improve accessibility to the site. one of the major problems at tintagel is this incredibly rocky landscape. we wanted to be able to get lots of people here who couldn't get here before. because there were so many steps up to the island, a lot of people couldn't