Glastonbury is said to lie on a ‘ley line’ – part of an implied network of impressionistic significance said to run across the land in straight, intersecting lengths not unlike a cobweb. But because of the presence of monasteries and churches from as early as the 6 thcentury, it became a sacred landscape, too.”
it created an evocative landscape that attracted myths and legends from its earliest history. “There was Glastonbury Tor, this outcrop that emerged out of the water, further emphasised by a church on the top. When it comes to the cultural seam that runs through it, the physical landscape around Glastonbury has perhaps more to answer for than mere aesthetics. “Right up until the later middle ages Glastonbury was a very watery place, essentially an island,” says Roberta Gilchrist, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading. So how did all this fall together around one photogenic but otherwise unremarkable Somerset town? Lines of the Land It’s not just skin deep, either: its history is linked strongly to numerous historical characters with ties to legendary royalty, mystical energies and even Jesus Christ. Combined with the sense of antiquity – the remains of an Iron Age ‘village’ were found on a crannog, or man-made island nearby – this gives Glastonbury a concentrated atmosphere. And atop this natural tower stands one that was built by people: the lone turret of St Michael’s, built in the 14 th century, and all that remains of a church.Īll of this is positioned in a pretty ruffle in the Somerset Levels, a largely flat place where water from the marshy ground shifts eagerly into mist at dawn and dusk. The whole extends apron-like from a steep sided 158-metre hill – bearing the terraced scars of excavation and the name Glastonbury Tor, ‘tor’ a word used to denote other such promontories in the south west of England. That town is a classically English place of jostled rooftops, old buildings of vibrantly decorated golden stone, and ruinously ancient religious structures. These days, the festival of performing arts that descends on Glastonbury is more of a place than the place itself: the 2019 attendance is expected to exceed 200,000, increasing the population of its namesake town by a factor of 20.
One that inhabits the ground on which it sits, and goes way back. For many it’s a chance to simply cut loose and party – but The Glastonbury Festival has, in its 49-year history, always had a different undercurrent to your typical event, and one that runs far deeper than the earthy vibe of its revellers. THIS week in the UK hundreds of thousands of people are gathering on 1.4 square miles of farmland in Somerset to attend one of the biggest and most famous music festivals in the world.
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