Battle of Hehil The Battle of Hehil was a battle won by a British force , probably against the Anglo - Saxons of Wessex in the year 721 or 722 . The location is unknown , except that it was " apud Cornuenses " ( among the Cornish ) . The battle is considered a notable victory for the Britons and is seen as having secured the independence of Dumnonia , the Celtic kingdom in southwest Britain which became the Kingdom of Cornwall . Sources . The " Annales Cambriae " say that in 722 there were : " The battle of Hehil among the Cornish " translates the Latin " bellum Hehil apud Cornuenses " . Although this source does not specifically identify the Anglo - Saxons as the enemy in all three cases , it is considered that the failure to specify the enemy was simply because this was so obvious to all , and that any other combatants would have been named . Location . The site of Hehil has long been considered to be near the River Camel , previously known as the ' Heil ' , but the Camel is much further west than the known sites of other battles which took place before and after 722 . In 653 , Wessex had won a battle at Penselwood , pushing the West Britons back beyond the River Parrett ; and , in 710 , they had won another victory , probably at Langport , Somerset . There are problems with the assumption that because the Cornish were involved the battle must be in or near Cornwall . Firstly , the Cornish and Dumnonia were often considered to be one and the same . Secondly , unless Hehil was an internal dispute , 722AD was too early so far inside British territory to be a battle with Anglo - Saxons . Interestingly , 722AD is also the date of claimed by the Anglo - Saxon Chronicle to be when a South - Saxon force sacked a West - Saxon fortress at Taunton . It may not be coincidence that there is a " Hele " just to the West of Taunton . If there is any key to finding the place , it will need to be in the " Annales Cambriae " . Three manuscripts of those annals each spell the name differently : Hehil , Heyl and Heil , suggesting that the word may be the Cornish " Heyl " , or estuary . There are no estuaries in east Cornwall now called anything like Hehil , but many places in Devon and Somerset were later given new names from Old English , and few place - names were recorded until the time of the Domesday Book . If Hehil is an estuary of Dumnonia , there are many candidates for it , including the estuaries of the rivers Parrett , Lyn , Axe , Exe , Teign and Dart . The location of the battle thus remains a matter of speculation . One historian who has analysed the period considers that the site of the battle may have been " at or near the spot where the fifteenth century bridge at Wadebridge crosses the Camel " . Another has suggested Jacobstow in Cornwall , a third states that " The most obvious interpretation of ' Hehil among the Cornish ' is the river Hayle in west Cornwall " , and a fourth merely notes that " 722 The " Annales Cambriae " record a British victory at Hehil in Cornwall " ( although that is an incorrect reading of the Latin word " apud " which means " amongst " or " by " and not " in " as suggested ) . Donald MacKinnon says [ it was ] " a third British victory at Hehil in the Devonian peninsula " . Significance . The British or Cornish victory at Hehil in 722 appears to have proved decisive in the history of the West Britons , bringing them a long period of peace and enabling the survival of their culture in what are now Cornwall and Devon . It was not until 814 that the Saxons returned to the assault , so the battle is seen as making possible a continuation of the independent Kingdom of Cornwall until the mid - 10th century . Defeat at Hehil might have led to Dumnonia ' s sharing the fate of the Celtic kingdom of Cumbria in the Old North , which disappeared almost without trace . Cumbria had lost its Cumbric language by about the 11th century , whereas the Cornish language survived into the 19th century .