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Glastonbury Abbey
St Mary's Chapel marks the site of Joseph of Arimathæa's original church, the first above-ground church in all Christendom. Glastonbury Abbey is also the only place that claims King Arthur's grave. It was found in the the Abbey cemetery during rebuilding of the church after a disastrous fire in 1184.
Jesus
The Celts had a deity named Easus who died and came back to life. When the Druids heard about Jesus from Joseph of Arimathæa, they saw the return of Easus in the story, and they gave part of Ynys Witrin to him. Here Joseph built the first above-ground Christian church in all of Christendom. There is also an unverified tradition that Joseph brought Jesus here as a young man, during the 'lost years'. As a result the local Druids might well have recognised their later hosting of the exiled Joseph and his followers as a significant act.
England's holyest earthe
This was a birthplace of Celtic Christianity – the Culdees or 'wanderers'. It grew to be a major site of pilgrimage for Christians. In the High Middle Ages it hosted a large library and was visited by spiritual and religious people of many kinds. It became so powerful that, when Henry VIII closed the Catholic Church in England and created the Anglican Church, he had to send his men to Glastonbury to find a pretext to take over the Abbey's land. The Abbey was closed down two years later than all the other monasteries in England.
The end of the Abbey
Henry's men found a chalice in Abbot Whiting's office. They said that it should have been in the king's treasury, so Abbot Whiting was accused of stealing it. They hanged him on trumped-up charges and then drew and quartered this unfortunate Abbot, on top of the Tor. After that, the Abbey treasure was taken and the building fell into ruin – helped by the locals who used the dressed stone for their own building purposes. At first an act of protest against centuries of subservience and service to the Abbey, many locals supported the dissolution of the Abbey, only to regret it when they experienced economic disaster in the area and a new subservience to the king's men.
Politics
One theory has it that Henry VIII sought relics of the chalice and the blood and sweat of Jesus held at Glastonbury, to verify England's primacy over Rome. This was high-level power-politics, a coup against Papal influence in European politics. The Abbot refused to yield these relics – it is said they were concealed in South Somerset and have been so to this day. So he had to be got rid of – he was seen as a traitor against the state.
Archaeological excavation
The Abbey remained derelict and in private ownership for 350 years until the Church of England acquired it in 1906. Church architect Frederick Bligh Bond of Bristol was hired to dig at Glastonbury Abbey. His discoveries were amazing, including the unexpected Edgar Chapel at the head of the Abbey. His success was due to a series of psychic 'automatic writings' in which Bond communicated through a friend of his with a thirteenth century monk, who spoke to him about the layout of the Abbey and grounds. Bond wrote about this in a book called The Gate Of Remembrance, published in 1918 (still available).
Unfortunately for him, he very quickly lost his job and was not often hired as an ecclesiastical architect after that. Bond also designed the vesica pisces lid on the Chalice Well – a symbol for Glastonbury, signifying the interlocking of the female and the male, of matter and spirit.
Today the Abbey is a pilgrimage site for all who come to Glastonbury. Its grounds are beautifully kept, and it is a place of silent meditation for all who enter. In a sense, the break-up of the Christian church and the later planting of an arboretum in the Abbey grounds has restored something of its former glory as a pre-Christian sacred grove.
The Abbot's Kitchen
The Abbot's Kitchen
This is the only intact building left over from the days of the Abbey, which closed in the 1530s. After the Dissolution, Glastonbury became a hotbed for Protestant Puritan radicals, some of whom were quite extreme. The Abbot's Kitchen was for a while used as a Quaker meeting house until the Quakers were forcibly ejected from Glastonbury, moving over the river Brue to found the neighbouring town of Street. Street later became a factory town for a Quaker shoemaking company, Clarks.
Apart from being an interesting medieval catering establishment, the Abbot's Kitchen is nowadays a wonderful chamber for toning, singing and chanting. Try it! The apex of the domed ceiling is on the left.
Glastonbury Abbey was England's most sanctified spot in medieval times, and a European-scale pilgrimage place. It's a most enchanting place. A visit to the crypt (below) is well worth it. A place to calm down, contemplate, pray and get to the heart of things. The same is true for the Chalice Well...