The town is famous for its great abbey of which only fragments remain.
Legend
tells how Joseph of Arimathea came to convert the English; arriving at
Glastonbury, he leant on his staff in prayer, whereupon the staff took
root, a
sign that the saint should settle and found a religious house. The holy
thorn
on Wearyall Hill, believed to have sprung from his staff was destroyed
during the Civil War, but a thorn in the abbey grounds is said to be a
cutting from it.
There is no historical evidence for the story of Joseph, but there was
probably
a religious foundation at Glastonbury as early as the 5th century. The
abbey
was the last of a series built on the site, the first being founded in
AD 688; begun early in the 13th century, it was not completed until just
before the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII.
The Arthurian legend associates Glastonbury with Avalon, the place to
which King Arthur was taken after his death. The Holy Grail is
which his knights
sought is said to have been brought from Jerusalem by Joseph and to rest
below the Chalice Spring on Glastonbury Tor, the steep hill which
dominates the town.
Though best known for the legends long associated with it, the town
itself is
worth a visit. The George Inn is one of the few English inns to survive
from
pre-Reformation times. Other notable buildings include St John’s
Church and
St Mary’s Almshouses.
A series of mounds in a marshy valley a mile from the Tor are the
remaining evidence of one of several lake-villages that existed in this
area before
the Roman conquest. Articles found here, now in Glastonbury’s
Tribunal,
include pottery, weapons and ornaments. |
