Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset

Photograph taken 26 June 2001 © David Sanderson. Source Historic England Archive ref: 265970

Glastonbury is by tradition the oldest monastic foundation in England. It is believed to contain the burial place of King Arthur. A monastery was founded during the early 8th century by Ine on the site of a possible 5th/6th century monastery and Celtic vallum monasterii (an earthwork or wall). Little is known of the monastery until 940 when it was refounded as a Benedictine Abbey by St Dunstan. The standing remains belong to the great abbey church rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1184. The abbey was dissolved in 1539 after the abbot, Richard Whyting and 2 of his monks had been executed on top of Glastonbury Tor for alleged treason. More Info

Location

Somerset Glastonbury

Period

Medieval (Middle Ages) (1066 - 1484)

Themes

A nunnery was first documented here in 603. A monastery was founded during the abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705). It became Benedictine in the reign of Edgar (959–975) and remained so until dissolved in 1539. The final Abbey Church was built circa 1160-70 and had 13th/14th and 15th century additions. The 431 feet (131 m) tall spire, collapsed in a storm around 1500. The west tower fell around 1550. As a result of these two collapses, less than half of the original building stands today. The abbey was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII. It was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He gave the abbey church to the town for continuing use as a parish church, and filled the abbey buildings with twenty looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.
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Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset

Location

Period

Themes

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