Glastonbury’s Fringe and Mainstream: A Historical Journey

A Conversation with Historian Adam Stout about his new book ‘Earthing the Dragon: Glastonbury and the Sixties’

I recently had the pleasure of meeting historian Adam Stout in the Snug bar of the Crown Hotel, I’ve been fascinated by his work since hearing his talk on Glastonbury’s holy springs or the Glastonbury Antiquarian Society. While we had intended to focus on his latest book, Earthing The Dragon – Glastonbury and The Sixties, our conversation quickly concentrated on the town’s much earlier history. We covered the extraordinary story of the 1750s water cure miracle associated with Matthew Chancellor, the enduring power of the Christmas-flowering Holy Thorn, and the early failure of Glastonbury’s attempt to become a wealthy spa town. We also discussed ongoing themes like the tension between different groups in Glastonbury, the current success of the town’s independent High Street, and the contemporary debate surrounding World Heritage Site status.

Myths, Miracles, and Modernity

Vicki: What brought you to Glastonbury?:

Adam: I went to Lampeter University in my late 30s to do a degree and then a PhD in archaeology. I became quite excited by the relationship between fringe and mainstream ideas about the ancient past. Ideas about truth, who owns the narrative, who decides how things are done, and who polices it. I wrote a book called Creating Prehistory: Druids, Ley Hunters and Archaeologists in pre-war Britain which caused a small stir in certain circles. I moved to Somerset in 2006 for a variety of reasons; getting closer to Glastonbury, the Mecca of all mysticism, was one of them. One of my mentors, Ronald Hutton, has a chapter on Glastonbury in one of his books, which deconstructs its modern mythology to show that it all started with the Avalonians in the twentieth century. I thought, “Hang on a minute, there was this strange episode of the waters in the 18th century.” Do you want me to go into that story?

Vicki: Yes, please.

Adam: So, there was a farmer from North Wootton, between Glastonbury and Shepton, who suffered badly from asthma. His name was Matthew Chancellor, and late in 1750, he had a dream in which he was told to go to the Chaingate in Magdalene Street, for seven successive Sundays, drink the water from the horse-trough, and he would be cured. And behold, he was. The news was broadcast far and wide by the town’s mayor, amongst others. Flyers went out across Britain and even Europe. People came here in large numbers to take the Seven Sundays water treatment, and they came because even then, Glastonbury was thought to be the sort of place where miracles might happen. This in turn was due to the existence of Glastonbury’s Christmas-flowering Holy Thorn tree, which, since legend had it that it was planted by Joseph of Arimathea who brought Christianity to Britain soon after the Crucifixion, was tolerated and even encouraged in the post-Reformation centuries as a kind of licensed Protestant miracle since it lent credibility to the English belief that they were, in a nutshell, a bit better than other people. This was one belief that did not fade out with the Age of Reason, and that is one reason why so many people in 1751 thought that there just might be something in it. They came to Glastonbury in their thousands throughout the early 1750s. They drank a lot of water; some were cured, some weren’t. The bubble eventually burst, but a certain idea of Glastonbury was created. I wrote a pamphlet about it all which caused a small stir, The Thorn and the Waters, and that’s how I became really fascinated by the history of Glastonbury’s legends.

Click the link to download the pamphlet from the Glastonbury Antiquarian website: The Thorn and the Waters

Turbulent Times: Calendar Change and the Pauper’s Pilgrimage

At pretty much the same date the calendar was changed, and 11 days were ‘dropped’ from the year. Reality seemed to be wobbling, and many people turned to Glastonbury’s Christmas-flowering Thorn as something fixed in turbulent times. They saw it as a kind of absolute barometer, believing it would tell them the exact date of the ‘real’ Christmas and put the ground beneath their feet again. One particular individual’s story really struck me. His name was John Jackson; he was a strange old codger from Yorkshire, who at the age of seventy walked all the way from Wakefield to Glastonbury to find out what day the Glastonbury Thorn would blossom. He kept a journal of his pauper’s pilgrimage across the heart of England at the start of the industrial revolution which really seized my imagination, so one year I followed in his footsteps. I was almost as broke as he was so I relied mostly upon the generosity of strangers to put me up. It was a fascinating experience and it probably wouldn’t have happened but for Morgy (Morgana West), who like Jackson came from Yorkshire and had just set up the Pilgrim Reception Centre in town. The timing was perfect and her enthusiasm kept me going.

Vicki: And you’ve got a website specifically about that, haven’t you?

Adam: Well, it’s an online book at the moment and it will probably stay that way because it’s a bit niche …  It’s called Strange Alteration: A Walk Across Time to Glastonbury and it’s a sort of dialogue between me and this strange old 18th-century pauper, across time and place.

The Enduring Glastonbury Mythos

After that I developed my own form of Glastonbury madness. I became more and more interested in how the Glastonbury mythos developed over time, doing lots of original research and publishing papers in academic journals. I did a significant one on the Abbey called “After the End”, looking at what happened to the building itself and the legends that accrued around it from the Dissolution of the Abbey up to the 19th century – material no one else had touched. Online here. Another piece I was quite proud of put the discovery of King Arthur’s Grave in 1191 into the context of Plantagenet dynastic rivalries, while reappraising the role of Glastonbury’s ‘bad abbot’ Savaric, a Burgundian who I think may have had something to do with bringing Joseph of Arimathea into the Glastonbury mix (online here ). I tried out a lot of new work in annual lectures to the wonderful Glastonbury Antiquarian Society, incIuding an important piece on the nineteenth-century run-up to the Avalonians which I called “The Onset of Avalon” (it’s online here , and I followed up some tangential will o’th’wisps too. I discovered almost by accident that St Michael’s tower on the Tor was restored by Henry Hoare, who was then developing the magnificent garden at Stourhead,, and who knew that Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt, political reformer and radical, was not only Lord of the Manor of Glastonbury but actually tried out some pioneering experiments in local democracy here in the 1820s?

The Golden Thread: The Glastonbury Holy Thorn

All these are tangents, interesting asides (to me at least!) which throw a lot of light on how Glastonbury developed, but the golden thread that connects the medieval legends and the modern ones is the Glastonbury Thorn, and it became clear to me that it needed a book all to itself. That tree has a complicated biography because it’s been adopted by everyone at various times. Catholics, Protestants, Pagans, Christians, Goddess people, Patriarchists (is that a word?), Nationalists, universalists – everyone’s wanted a slice of the action. The book came out in 2020 and had a lot of very nice reviews.

Adam’s Book ‘Glastonbury Holy Thorn: Story of a Legend’ is available from all good Glastonbury bookshops or by mail order from the Pilgrim Reception Centre or Amazon.

Transition to Modern History: Earthing the Dragon

People suggested I write a longer book, a sort of “People’s History of Glastonbury”, and I started doing some serious work on that, but then my wife died. So I spent a year adrift, trying to make sense of things. The Big Book may now never happen but almost as a kind of therapy I began writing about the peachy subject of Glastonbury and the 1960s. There was such a lot of positivity in that decade, such a lot of hope, and Glastonbury came to be seen as the crucible of the new dreaming. Everyone’s heard of the Avalonians, and about how the hippies came in numbers in the years after the 1971 festival at Pilton but much less has been said about the time in between, and that’s what the new book is all about. More about it here

Glastonbury’s Failure to Become a Spa Town

Vicki: My main takeaway from your work on the springs, what I found most interesting, is the idea that because that man experienced a miracle and Glastonbury gained a reputation for miracles, it attracted the poor who couldn’t afford doctors and were seeking miraculous cures. This, in turn, put off the wealthier clientele that people like Ann Gallaway, promoter of the Pump House, had hoped to attract. They wanted Glastonbury to be a spa town, didn’t they?

Adam: They did.

Vicki: So, am I correct in thinking that because it became known for miracles, it put off the wealthier clientele? At one point, we had 5,000 people camped outside. I find that interesting because I see parallels today. Bruton and Frome have art galleries and affluent Londoners, while we have hundreds of people in caravans on the outskirts of town, or making inroads into it, which presumably deters some who might otherwise buy up the Town.

Adam: Hopefully.

Vicki: But do you agree? Is that an accurate interpretation?

Adam: Yes, that’s accurate, I think.

Vicki: Right. And do you think that’s an ongoing theme? There was always tension, even in Christian history, between the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the Abbey, wasn’t there? I’ve seen that…

Adam: In the early days.

Vicki: I’ve seen it expressed that the Abbey was about taking in pilgrims and serving their needs, whereas the Bishop of Bath and Wells was about power and wealth. That’s massively simplistic, but it points to an ongoing tension between pilgrims, locals, business people, and religious figures about who Glastonbury serves.

Adam: I see where you’re going with this but I don’t think the evidence stretches that far. Without going into the abbey vs diocese debate – which as you say is very complex – I think it’s fair to say that what visitors there were to Glastonbury were generally pretty welcomed by a town that had been on its uppers since 1539. Both Catholics and Protestants are known to have visited, the first to revere the memory of the martyred Abbot Whiting and the second to visit the alleged birthplace of British Christianity, but they were not poor. The 1751 phenomenon was different. Many wannabe spa towns claimed special properties for their waters, but Glastonbury was something else. The ‘seven Sundays’ miracle was in a league of its own. The water supposedly came from Chalice Well, having made its way to the Chaingate horse-trough across the land of the Abbey, where it filtered through the bones of saints and martyrs buried there: that’s what made it special. You couldn’t drink it on a Saturday, Friday, or Tuesday; it had to be on Sunday, seven in a row. And only a specific quantity – not too much, not too little. People queued up for it – and above all it was free, so poor people in need of healing came in numbers, even though the town authorities tried very hard to deter them. It didn’t help that there wasn’t much for rich people to do here; it was never going to be Bath or Cheltenham. All we had was a Pump House, a sad and sorry affair compared to Bath. Those arched panels on the Magdalene Street frontage were probably left blank from Ann Gallaway’s time right up until Jon Minshull’s fine murals were painted last year. So, that building is finally coming into its own.

Vicki: So even with the series of pools and whatever that was built up there…?

Adam: It’s hard to say for sure exactly what was actually constructed. There was a lot of hype in Ann Gallaway’s adverts, a lot of wishful thinking. It was such a short-lived bubble. The Pump House only opened in 1753, two years after the miracle, and two years later she was already asking supporters for financial support. She died in 1756, and the pump house dream died with her; she ran out of money and then ran out of life. After that, Glastonbury’s wealthy visitors found a few pubs and lots of paupers: not a lot to hold them, certainly when compared with Cheltenham or Bath for instance.

Glastonbury Today: The Independent High Street and Visible Affluence

Vicki: And do you think that has changed?

Adam: I don’t know, it’s quite interesting, there’s a parallel. It’s true of course that there are lots of people visiting today who may not have much money, but unlike 1751 a lot of better-off people do come here and are happy to pay well for their experiences. This town’s vibrant High Street is kept alive by people with money, and I would say it’s getting visibly more up-market too. Shops that started out decades ago as boutiques on back-alleys are now doing very posh and nicely on the main drag now. So in a way the dream of 1751 has finally come true! But it’s also interesting that there are more and more New Age places everywhere.

Vicki: But it’s in every high street now.

Adam: Exactly.

Vicki: I worked at Mysteries in Covent Garden before I moved here. It was the biggest New Age shop in Europe. Now it no longer exists because you can get that stuff anywhere.

Adam: Yeah.

Vicki: What I find interesting, on a similar theme, is that I’m told many small market towns in England are struggling. I recently met someone who was in a small market town and wanted coffee, and when they asked, they were told the café had closed last week. I’m hearing about places this size where a quarter of the shops are boarded up, and former tourist destinations are dead. It’s interesting that here, because we have a unique and independent High Street, shops don’t stay closed for very long.

Adam: The Mitre and The Who’d A Thought It pubs, for instance, both briefly shut down but have since reopened. That’s a good sign. Not all pubs, but the one at the top of the High Street…

Vicki: The Queen’s Head and the Globe went.

Adam: Still, for a small town, it’s not a bad tally that two of them came back from the dead.

Adam: Yes, it has its unique selling point. Although, perhaps not so unique anymore, as New Age appeal is working elsewhere too. As you say, many towns now have shops embracing this. But, yes, High Streets…

Adam: Do you have a Betfred? If you’ve got a Betfred…

Vicki: We had a betting shop on the marketplace for ages. Then it became a pizza place, which closed after about nine months. Chain stores just don’t seem to last here.

Adam: People come here for the unique, don’t they? They come here specifically for the independent stuff.

The World Heritage Status Debate and the Power of Myth

Vicki: There’s a concern that World Heritage status could make Glastonbury more attractive to chain stores.

Adam: Yes. I think the whole plan needs careful consideration; it could all go horribly wrong.

Vicki: Well, I don’t think it’s going to happen, to be honest. Do you think that Glastonbury really has enough claim to World Heritage status anyway?

Adam: No, I don’t think so, not in terms of physical features anyway.

Vicki: What I find interesting about Glastonbury is that it doesn’t matter whether King Arthur existed, or if the Holy Thorn was planted by Joseph of Arimathea, or whether the water is miraculous, or the Glastonbury Zodiac – which I find utterly laughable, to be honest; I just think it’s ‘join the dots’. But I think the fact that all these myths have persisted, grown, and continued to bring people here is fascinating.

Adam: Exactly. Historically speaking, the Abbey is the kernel from which the whole phenomenon ultimately developed, but the Glastonbury mystique is not about physical bricks and mortar, or even medieval stone. I think trying to ground it like that is misguided and could actually backfire badly. Some folk think that if the Tor, in particular, could be designated a World Heritage Site, this would somehow hinder major road developments. But in order to qualify for WHS status the Abbey is the site that matters, and these two sites are linked by Chilkwell Street, which is the very road that advocates of the bypass believe it would relieve. The logic of the Heritage Site requires better visitor communication between Tor and Abbey, perhaps even by pedestrianising Chilkwell Street, but you can’t do that without building a bypass. Nor is proximity to a special site any protection against that sort of development. Look at the Hill of Tara in Ireland. Look at Stonehenge, just a couple of hundred yards from a trunk road. Why should Glastonbury Tor be any different? So I don’t think the WHS will be any kind of a deterrent to road building. Then there’s the question of visitor numbers. Does Glastonbury really need more visitors? And what about the extra facilities they would need? There’d be a lot of pressure to provide a proper car park for people who want to clamber up the Tor. Where exactly would that car park be? Which fields would people be willing to sacrifice for this?

Vicki: I think we, as a town, need to sit down and work out what we want, what we can deal with, and how we’re going to cope with the current visitor numbers. Events are getting more and more popular and causing more and more disruption.

Adam: It’s curious, isn’t it? The town is a victim of its own success. The May Day event, for instance is only 10 or 15 years old. It was pretty small at first but it’s huge now.

Vicki: I’ve actually written the history of that,. It’s pretty basic, but it’s about the development of May Day. What interests me about May Day is that it was the first event to come down from the Tor. When I first came here, ‘hippy’ events happened up on the Tor. Then May Day was brought down to the Market Cross, which I think is really significant. In those days, there was a very clear distinction between locals and incomers, and locals would oppose everything incomers wanted to do. The fact that this event stopped being tucked away – things used to happen in the Assembly Rooms, not spill out onto the street – is notable. I have links to YouTube videos from some early ones with the first dragon and so forth; it was much wilder, less coordinated, and more amateur.

Adam: Those first events took me back to Reclaim the Streets days. They were a bit dangerous and motorists did get annoyed… I can see both points of view on that. The organisers did get on top of that one. But once you shut off the town and it becomes party time, people come from everywhere to take part in it. Last year I found myself sitting on a bus beside an absolutely splendid Green Man who had come down from London with other only slightly less splendid Green Men, fairies and the rest. They looked incredible, coming down to party. It’s like the festival really has moved into town for the duration, and it’s wonderful, but it’s just getting so huge. What’s to be done? I wish I knew!

Although our conversation ended when more people came into the snug, I hope this discussion provides a glimpse into the depth of Adam’s research, which consistently explores how the Glastonbury mythos developed over time. Whether examining the medieval legends or the modern ones connected by the “golden thread” of the Glastonbury Thorn, or exploring the town’s period as the “crucible of the new dreaming” in the 1960s, Adam offers deep and original insights. His work suggests that the power of Glastonbury is not about physical bricks and mortar, but the fact that these persistent myths continue to bring people here. I highly recommend checking out his work to explore the complex biography of this unique town.

Enjoy this post?

Then you’ll love my books – ‘Normal For Glastonbury: Life in England’s Most Magical Town’ and my ‘Crap Views of the Tor’ Postcard Book. I’ve produced canvas Tote bags featuring my funny Normal For Glastonbury Town Map. There’s Mugs and more in my Online Shop too.

Join the Community: My readers support this blog to keep it independent and ad-free, so I cancontinue to write about and photograph Glastonbury Town and its wonderful creative community. For more of ‘this sort of thing’ join the We Are Normal For Glastonbury membership site, for exclusive content, a comprehensive guide to making the most of your visit to the town, a personalised membership certificate and more. Membership is only £20 a year.

You can also subscribe to Normal For Glastonbury by email, follow the Normal for Glastonbury Facebook page, share my blog and Facebook posts (this is really important – it’s how I reach more readers!).

Would you like to commission and sponsor me to write an article about what you do, for a feature on Normal For Glastonbury? You’d be reaching thousands of readers who love the Town. Please click here for more information.