Glastonbury travel guide
For the past 40-plus years, Glastonbury has been the scene of a celebrated annual rock festival in fields nearby, attracting huge crowds to see the biggest names in pop. By contrast, it is also home to the oldest Christian foundation in Britain.
Read more about unique and quirky locations for music festivals...
Glastonbury attractions
Glastonbury Tor
Glastonbury Tor, above the town, offers views as far as the Bristol Channel. On this spot the last abbot and his treasurer were executed in 1539 for opposing Henry VIII.
Glastonbury Abbey
The ruined abbey is built on the site of a much earlier church which, according to legend, dates from the 1st century, when Joseph of Arimathea is supposed to have brought either the Holy Grail or the Blood of the Cross here. St Patrick and St Bridget visited the abbey in the 5th century, and Edmund I (d.946), Edgar (d.975) and Edmund Ironside (d.1016) are all buried here.
The buildings that you see today date from between 1184 and 1303, when Glastonbury was the richest Benedictine abbey bar Westminster in England: they fell into ruins after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. Remains of a warrior and his female companion, interred in front of the high altar, are identified as King Arthur and Queen Guinevere by local legend. Winter-flowering hawthorns in the abbey’s grounds are supposed to have sprung from the Holy Thorn borne here by Joseph.
Read more from the travel guide to England