For Christmas 2022 I got a National Trust membership. It had been a few years since I was last a member, went to quite a few new places and returning to places I had been to before.
I have been thinking about joining again for 2025. However, there are quite a few National Trust places you can visit, which don’t need membership, such as Glastonbury Tor.
Though I have visited Glastonbury quite a few times over the years I have been living down in Somerset, I had never climbed the Tor until October 2017. With some lovely sunny weather, and some frost, I decided I would head off to climb the Tor again.
Glastonbury Tor is a distinct prominent hill amongst the Somerset Levels and can be seen from a quite a distance.
It is topped by the roofless St Michael’s Tower. There was originally a wooden church, however that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275. A stone replacement, the Church of St Michael built on the site in the 14th century and over the centuries has been restored and partially rebuilt several times. Now just the roofless tower remains
The hill and the tower are now managed by the National Trust. Mythically the Tor was thought to be the Isle of Avalon, a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. When the surrounding land was swamp, the Tor was essentially an island.
It was back in 1190, that Avalon became associated with Glastonbury, when monks at Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have discovered the bones of Arthur and Guinevere.
There is plenty of cheap parking in the town itself and there are a range of esoteric shops that also deserve exploring (after you have climbed the Tor). As you might expect there are a fair number of teashops too.
This year I have planned to visit fifty places. Glastonbury Tor is the first of that fifty.
