Qualla: Glastonbury

Glastonbury: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Two miles outside Glastonbury, archaeologists in 1970 lifted a wooden walkway out of the peat that was old enough to make Stonehenge look modern. The Sweet Track, named for the man who dug a drainage ditch through it, was built in the 39th century BC - dendrochronology pins it to 3807 or 3806 BC - and it ran across the marsh from Westhay to Shapwick when the area we now call Somerset was a half-drowned wetland of reeds and islands. Glastonbury was one of those islands. Eight thousand years of more or less continuous human habitation later, it is the only town in England where Druids, Benedictine nuns, Sufi mystics, Pagan goddess priestesses, and 200,000 music festival pilgrims all consider themselves locals.

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Glastonbury: An Island in a Marsh

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Before the Somerset Levels were drained, Glastonbury sat on a dry knoll surrounded by reedbeds, lakes, and seasonal flooding that turned the surrounding country into water for half the year. Glastonbury Tor, the strange conical hill that dominates the skyline, made it visible for...

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Glastonbury: King Arthur's Tomb

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1184, the abbey burned. Pilgrim donations dried up, and the monks needed a financial miracle. In 1191 they got one: they announced the discovery of the graves of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere on the abbey grounds. The bones were duly produced, contemporary chroniclers visite...

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Glastonbury: Dissolution and After

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Henry VIII's commissioners dissolved Glastonbury Abbey in 1539 and hanged the last abbot, Richard Whiting, from the top of the Tor. The abbey buildings were progressively dismantled - stones carried off for houses, walls, and roads - until the great church was an empty ruin. The ...

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Glastonbury: Seventy Faiths

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In April 2012 the local Pilgrim Reception Centre counted around seventy distinct faith groups operating in a town of fewer than nine thousand people. There is a Catholic Benedictine monastery founded in 2019, a Goddess Temple that registered as a place of worship in 2003, a Sufi ...

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Glastonbury: Worthy Farm

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Glastonbury Festival is held six miles east of town, at Worthy Farm between the villages of Pilton and Pylle. Michael Eavis ran the first one in 1970, charging one pound for entry and including a free pint of milk from his herd. By 2007 the festival covered 900 acres, had 80 ...

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