Glastonbury Abbey

Listen for a moment. Rooks call from the tall trees, grass gives a little underfoot, and somewhere a gate clicks shut. Ahead of you, two broken towers of pale stone rise from a wide green lawn. They hold up nothing now. Between them there is only sky. This is Glastonbury Abbey, and the empty space between those piers is the first thing to understand about it.

Those two great columns once carried the crossing of an enormous church. That was the point where the nave met the transepts, the two arms that give a church its cross shape. Stand near them and look up. You can see where arches once sprang out toward each other and met high above. Today the arches stop in mid-air, like a sentence left unfinished. Try to build the missing roof in your mind. It is a useful way to sense the true scale of what stood here.

Glastonbury is a small market town in Somerset, in the south-west of England. Long ago, much of the land around it was marsh and shallow water, and it flooded every winter. The higher ground here became an island in the wet season. That is one reason medieval writers linked this place to Avalon, the mysterious island of the Arthurian stories. Walk out later toward the Tor, the steep hill with a lone tower on top. From there you can still read the old shape of that island in the flat land below.

The abbey is among the oldest Christian sites in England. Its exact beginnings are lost. But by Anglo-Saxon times it was already a place of great importance. In the tenth century a monk named Dunstan became abbot here. He reformed the community and later became Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most powerful churchmen in the country. Several Anglo-Saxon kings chose to be buried at Glastonbury, including Edgar and Edmund Ironside. For royalty, this was ground worth resting in.

Now for the legends — and they are legends, not documented history. One popular tale says that Joseph of Arimathea came here. In the Gospels, Joseph is the man who buried Jesus. According to the story, he planted his staff on a nearby hill, and it grew into a thorn tree. Some versions add that he brought the Holy Grail with him. Locals still tend a Glastonbury Thorn, a hawthorn that can flower twice a year — in spring, and again around Christmas. You may find one growing here in the grounds.

The real turning point came in 1184. A great fire swept through the abbey. It destroyed the buildings, and it destroyed the old church that the monks revered above all. Medieval accounts describe that church as very ancient, built simply of wattle, which means woven branches. The monks lost their oldest treasure in a single night. They began to rebuild almost at once, and on a grand scale. Rebuilding cost money, and money needed pilgrims.

The chapel at the western end of the ruins was the first part to rise again. It is called the Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and it is the most complete structure on the site. Look closely at its walls. The stone is a warm golden colour. Rows of interlaced arches run along the lower walls, each one crossing over the next. Above the doorways there are carved figures. Rain and centuries have softened them, but they are still there to find.

Here is a detail many visitors walk straight past. Below the floor of the Lady Chapel there is a lower level, a crypt that was added later in the Middle Ages. Look down through the openings and you can see it. The chapel was built to stand where the old wattle church had stood. So when you stand here, you are standing on the spot the monks believed was the holiest in England.

In 1191, a few years after the fire, the monks announced a remarkable discovery. They said they had dug in the cemetery and found the grave of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. A lead cross was reported to name Arthur and to call this place Avalon. Many historians today suspect the find was a clever way to draw pilgrims and raise funds. Whatever the truth, it worked. Glastonbury became known across Europe as the resting place of Arthur.

In 1278 King Edward the First and Queen Eleanor came here. In their presence, the bones were moved to a black marble tomb in front of the high altar. That tomb is gone now. But walk east along the nave toward where the altar once stood. A simple marker on the grass shows the site. People still pause there, some with flowers, some just reading quietly. It is a small rectangle of ground with a very large story attached to it.

The abbey's end was sudden and brutal. In the 1530s King Henry the Eighth broke with the Church in Rome and closed the monasteries of England. Glastonbury was one of the last great houses to fall. Its elderly abbot, Richard Whiting, was put on trial. In 1539 he was executed on the summit of the Tor, in sight of his own abbey. Afterwards the buildings were stripped. For generations, local people carried the stone away to build houses, walls and roads.

One building did survive almost whole — the Abbot's Kitchen. Find it near the edge of the grounds. It is a square stone building with an eight-sided roof that rises to a lantern at the top. That lantern let smoke and heat escape from the great fires below. Inside, look at the huge fireplaces set into the corners. This kitchen fed the abbot and his important guests. Its survival shows how much was lost elsewhere on the site.

In the early twentieth century the ruins came into Church of England ownership, and excavations began. One architect who led the early digs later claimed he had been guided by messages from long-dead monks. His methods caused controversy, and he lost his post. Today the grounds are calmer. There is an orchard, ponds and wide lawns, and the trees fill with birds.

Before you leave, go back to the two crossing piers. Notice how the light falls through the gap where the tower once stood. Notice the walkers on the grass, and the town's rooftops just beyond the wall. Almost a thousand years of building, faith and story stood on this ground. Much of it is now open sky. As you walk out, look at the old stone in the walls along the streets. Some of it may once have been part of this abbey.