Pilgrim Ways

Chapter One - Glastonbury The arrival of St.Augustine at Ebbsfleet, in 597, is frequently seen as the landmark event which entrenched Christianity in Britain. Yet evidence exists of a much earlier Christian presence.

In Canterbury itself the Roman Church of St.Martin dates from around AD 320 while the Celtic Church boasts settlements of even greater antiquity. Bangor-on-the Dee, in Clwyd, has been dated at around AD180 but it was during the fourth century that the Celtic monastic movement claimed Britain and its people for Christianity. St.Ninian, a British Roman, established the first Christian community outside the boundaries of Rome‟s fast fading empire. The impact of the Celtic missionaries was to be far reaching but as Rome‟s hegemony was eclipsed and England was colonised by successive waves of invaders their influence was pushed back to the inaccessible and remote places. Yet, even before this, legend has it that Christianity first entered these islands in the earliest days of the faith - and that it came to the Somerset settlement at Glastonbury.

There is an aura which pervades Glastonbury. Whether it is the stories of the Holy Grail, the court of King Arthur, the plunder of the monastery and the murder of its abbot, the history of the nearby Tor, or the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, there is no doubt that Glastonbury draws upon some of the richest folk memories of our British traditions. Edmund Burke well understood the basic impulse of all people to know something of their roots and origins when he wrote: “People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors." You cannot travel far in Glastonbury without being reminded of our British ancestors. When I last visited Glastonbury it was on the last day of the last year of the last millennium. Some of the children stayed with their grandparents in Wiltshire and a small group from our extended family decided that it was a good day to visit Wells Cathedral and Glastonbury.

Wells.

Wells is less than eight miles from Glastonbury and boasts one of the finest of the medieval cathedrals. Its name comes from the profusion of holy wells which poured forth around a Roman mausoleum. This was the place which King Ina of the West Saxons chose for a Christian church. In the Anglo-Saxon the Minster was first known as Wiela.

Bishop Jocelin Troteman de Wells was responsible for the present cathedral church. He was bishop between 1206-1242. Around his church he created a network of schools - a grammar school and a choir school -, almshouses, hospitals, hospices and workplaces. The church is a magnificent building, truly beautiful. My children particularly enjoyed the cathedral‟s clock, and the characters who appear to strike the hours. This astronomical clock dates from the fourteenth century and was probably made by Peter Lightfoot of Glastonbury . The clock not only gives the time of day but also the phase of the moon, and at every quarter of the hour a small tournament takes place as four clockwork knights charge one another. At the battle‟s end one is always left dead. A figure called Jack Blandifer is situated on the wall above and