Glastonbury

Glastonbury ( GLAST-ən-bər-ee, UK also GLAHST-) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It is situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, 23 miles (37 km) south of Bristol. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 8,980 and the built-up area had a population of 8,300. The town is less than 1 mile (2 km) across the River Brue from Street, a village which is now larger than Glastonbury. Evidence from timber trackways such as the Sweet Track show that the town has been inhabited since Neolithic times. Glastonbury Lake Village was an Iron Age village, close to the old course of the River Brue and Sharpham Park approximately 2 miles (3 km) west of Glastonbury, that dates back to the Bronze Age. Centwine was the first Saxon patron of Glastonbury Abbey, which dominated the town for the next 700 years and was one of the most important abbeys in England. Many of the oldest surviving buildings in the town, including the Tribunal, George Hotel and Pilgrims' Inn and the Somerset Rural Life Museum, which is based at the site of a 14th-century abbey manor barn, often referred to as a tithe barn, are associated with the abbey. The Church of St John the Baptist dates from the 15th century. The town became a centre for commerce, which led to the construction of the market cross, Glastonbury Canal and the Glastonbury and Street railway station, the largest station on the original Somerset and Dorset Railway. The Brue Valley Living Landscape is a conservation project managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust and nearby is the Ham Wall National Nature Reserve. Glastonbury has been described as having a New Age community, and possibly being where New Age beliefs originated at the turn of the...