For the views, hike up the 500-foot-tall Glastonbury Tor (a grassy, conical clay hill capped with an old church tower), and you’ll notice the remains of the labyrinth that made climbing the hill a challenge some 5,000 years ago. It gurgles with a thought-provoking mix of history and mystery. The origins of these seven terraces are uncertain.Two hours west of London, Glastonbury is a mecca for seekers. The rock mysteriously causes the two nearly adjacent red and white springs below the tor to run with different waters. The distinctive shape is due to a combination of the unusual geology and the artificial terraces. The hill rises 158m (518ft) above the surrounding flat land and rewards those on the top with a fine 360-degree view. The last Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Richard Whiting, was hung, drawn and quartered here along with two of his monks in 1539. One of the carvings is of St Bridget milking a cow.ĭuring the Reformation when Glastonbury Abbey was suppressed the tower was witness to a grizzly scene. Though now only a tower, there are carvings that survive to give some idea of how it was decorated. It replaced a church destroyed by an earthquake, before that the Romans made use of this hilltop.
It is all that remains of the 14th-century church of St Michael. It seems odd to think that this tower has not always stood upon the tor. On England’s pleasant pastures seen?' A lonely tower This legend inspired William Blake to write the famous poem ‘Jerusalem’ Joseph was a tin merchant and had travelled to the South-West for this valuable metal. Jesus is said to have come to Glastonbury as a boy, traveling here with Joseph of Arimathea. The monks of Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have actually found his grave in 1191. Glastonbury has a long tradition of being ‘The Isle of Avalon’ where King Arthur went after his last battle. The Cauldron and the Grail were both the object of quests for King Arthur and his knights. Later tradition has it that here lies the Holy Grail brought here by Jesus’s uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. There dwells the lord of the Celtic underworld Gwyn ab Nudd with the Cauldron of Rebirth. Beneath the hill, it is said, that there is a hidden cave through which you can pass in to the fairy realm of Annwn.
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