The abbey was founded by Britons and dates at least to the early-7th century. Dark Age occupation of the site is evidenced by pieces of ceramic wine jars that were imported from the Mediterranean. A medieval Christian legend claimed the abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century. This fanciful legend is intimately tied to Robert de Boron's version of the Holy Grail story and Glastonbury's connection with King Arthur from the early-12th century. Glastonbury fell into Saxon hands after the Battle of Peonnum in 658. Cenwalh allowed the British abbot, Bregored, to remain in power, a move perhaps intended as a show of good faith to the defeated Britons. After Bregored's death in 669, he was replaced by an Anglo-Saxon, Berhtwald, but British monks remained for many years. King Ine of Wessex enriched the endowment of the community of monks established at Glastonbury and directed that a stone church be built in 712, the foundations of which form the west end of the nave. A glassworks was established at the site during the 7th century. Glastonbury was ravaged by the Danes in the 9th century. The abbey church was enlarged in the 10th century by the abbot of Glastonbury, Dunstan, the central figure in the 10th-century revival of English monastic life, who instituted the Benedictine Rule at Glastonbury. He also built the cloisters. Dunstan became Archbishop of Canterbury in 960. In 967, King Edmund was interred at Glastonbury.In 1016 Edmund Ironside, who had lost England to Canute but held onto the title of King of Wessex, was also buried there. Cnut's charter of 1032 was "written and promulgated in the wooden church at Glastonbury, in the kings presence".

 

The medieval Glastonbury Canal was built about the middle of the 10th century to link the abbey with the River Brue, a distance of about 1.75 kilometres. Its purpose is believed to be to transport stone to build the abbey, but later was used to transport produce, including grain, wine and fish, from the abbey's outlying properties. Much of the building stone came from the abbey's quarries at Doulting, accessed by way of the River Sheppey at Pilton. The abbey was the centre of a large water-borne transport network as further canalisations and new channels were made, including the diversion of the Brue to access the estate at Meare and an easier route to the Bristol Channel. In the 13th century the abbey's head boatman transported the abbot in an eight-oared boat on visits to the abbey's nearby manors. At the Norman Conquest in 1066, the wealth of Glastonbury made it a prime prize. The new Norman abbot, Turstin, added to the church, unusually building to the east of the older Saxon church and away from the ancient cemetery, thus shifting the sanctified site. This was later changed by Herlewin the next abbot, who built a larger church. Not all the new Normans were suitable heads of religious communities. In 1077, Thurstin was dismissed after his armed retainers killed monks by the High Altar. In 1086, when Domesday Book was commissioned, Glastonbury Abbey was the richest monastery in the country. About 1125, the abbot Henry of Blois commissioned a history of Glastonbury from the esteemed historian William of Malmesbury, who was a guest of the monks. His work "On the Antiquity of the Glastonese Church" was compiled sometime between 1129 and 1139 as part of a campaign to establish the abbey's primacy against Westminster.

 

In 1184, a great fire at Glastonbury destroyed the monastic buildings. Reconstruction began almost immediately and the Lady Chapel, which includes the well, was consecrated in 1186. There is evidence that, in the 12th century, the ruined nave was renovated enough for services while the great new church was being constructed. Parts of the walls of the aisle and crossing having been completed by 1189, progress then continued more slowly. Pilgrim visits had fallen and in 1191 the alleged discovery of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere's tomb in the cemetery provided fresh impetus for visiting Glastonbury. A contemporaneous, though not an eyewitness account was given by Giraldus Cambrensis in his De principis instructione ("Instruction of a Prince," ca. 1193) and recollected in his Speculum Ecclesiae, ca. 1216 according to which the abbot, Henry de Sully, commissioned a search, discovering at the depth of 16 feet (5 m) a massive hollowed oak trunk containing two skeletons. Above it, under the covering stone, according to Giraldus, was a leaden cross with the unmistakably specific inscription Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia ("Here lies interred the famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon"). Historians today generally dismiss the authenticity of the find, attributing it to a publicity stunt performed to raise funds to repair the Abbey

 

In the 14th century, only Westminster Abbey was more richly endowed and appointed than Glastonbury. The abbot of Glastonbury kept great state, now attested to simply by the ruins of the Abbot's Kitchen, with four huge fireplaces at its corners. The kitchen was part of the magnificent abbot's house begun under Abbot John de Breynton (1334–42). It is one of the best preserved medieval kitchens in Europe, and the only substantial monastic building surviving at Glastonbury. The conditions of life in England during the Wars of the Roses became so unsettled that a wall was built around the abbey's precincts. The George Hotel and Pilgrims' Inn was built in the late 15th century to accommodate visitors to the abbey. The abbey also held lands outside the town serving large parts of Somerset and including parts of neighbouring counties. Tithe barns were built to hold the crops due to the abbey including those at Doulting and Pilton. At the start of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, there were over 850 monasteries, nunneries and friaries in England. By 1541, there were none. More than 15,000 monks and nuns had been dispersed and the buildings had been seized by the Crown to be sold off or leased to new lay occupiers. Glastonbury Abbey was reviewed as having significant amounts of silver and gold as well as its attached lands. In September 1539, the abbey was visited by Richard Layton, Richard Pollard and Thomas Moyle, who arrived there without warning on the orders of Thomas Cromwell. The abbey was stripped of its valuables and Abbot Richard Whiting (Whyting), who had been a signatory to the Act of Supremacy that made Henry VIII the head of the church, resisted and was hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor on Glastonbury Tor on 15 November 1539.

 

The whole site is set on a gentle slope, rising along a short driveway, underneath the old Gatehouse arch on Magdalene Street. There is also a more level access from the back of St Dunstan's car park on Magdalene Street giving access to our Ticket Office and shop. The abbey is set behind a perimeter wall that encloses our site. The grounds are mostly level or gently sloping, and all the main paths are large enough to take wheel chairs. There is a hearing loop at the counter in the shop and we have a manual wheel chair available for loan at the Ticket Office. An accessible WC is situated in the courtyard behind the entrance.

Location : Magdalene St, Glastonbury, Somerset BA6 9EL

Transport: Castle Cary (National Rail) then taxi OR Bristol Temple Meads (National Rail) then bus. Bus Routes : Berry's Coach from London, 376 from Bristol, the 29, 38 from Taunton and X75, 375,377, 37, from Wells stop nearby.

Opening Times : Daily 09:00 - 18:00; June - August until 20:00

Tickets : Adults £6.00;  Senior/Student £5.00;  Children (5 - 15) £4.00

Tel: 01458 832267