The Bride’s Mound Controversy

There has recently been a lot of controversy on social media over the new path on Bride’s Mound. Some welcome the improved accessibility for people who use mobility aids, while others see it as a “desecration” of a sacred site. I’ve had a look at the site myself, here’s my contribution to the debate.

A Brief Introduction and Further Reading

Bride’s Mound is a low-lying mound at the western gate of Glastonbury. It’s considered one of the sacred hills of the Isle of Avalon. The site is a scheduled ancient monument and is of great importance to both Christians and pagans. Legend tells us it was sacred to St. Brigid (Bhríde) from Kildare, in Ireland. The association of the site with Bride, the triple Goddess of the Celts, later Christianized as St. Bride, is well described in this article by Morgana West. I also wrote about the mound for this blog in 2022.

An archaeological dig in the 1960s revealed 35 skeletons on the site. In 2016, another dig led by the South West Heritage Trust, which included radiocarbon dating of remains, was able to date these skeletons to the 5th Century. At last, there was scientific evidence to show that Bride’s Mound is the earliest known monastic site in the UK, predating Iona and Glastonbury Abbey.

You can read articles about these here: https://archives.swheritage.org.uk/earliest-monastery-discovered and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-38187299

The Friends of Bride’s Mound

The mound lies at the edge of what’s called “the Morland’s Site,” an old sheepskin factory that declined in the early 1980s, finally closing in 1992. In 1995, the factory buildings were sold off, and the new owners submitted plans to Mendip District Council to turn the bottom end of the Bride’s Hill field into a lorry park.

In living memory, the Mound became a pilgrimage site for the Glastonbury Community around 1986, with a small procession from Chalice Well to the Mound every Imbolc, initiated by Dr. Serena Roney-Dougal.

The Friends of Bride’s Mound (FOBM) was formed in 1995 by a group of local women, following a meeting in the Town’s Bridget Chapel (now home to the Library of Avalon). Their mission was to legally protect the Mound and surrounding fields from development. Over the years, they’ve managed to purchase the fields around the site, plant trees, and make numerous small environmental improvements.

In 2000, Friends of Bride’s Mound gave evidence at the Public Inquiry for the District Local Plan, establishing that the whole Chapel Field was outside the Morland’s development limit. The Inspector supported their intentions that this place would be respected for its spiritual significance and that any use of the site failing to respect the setting of the Chapel would not be allowed. In 2005, Friends of Bride’s Mound purchased three fields, totaling twenty-five acres of land, known locally as ‘The Brides,’ which included the Ridge forming part of the western end of Bride’s Mound. In 2009, Somerset County Council became the owners of the Chapel field.

The Friends of Bride’s Mound have been looking for funding to improve disabled access and build an eco-friendly sanctuary on the site since 2009. Finally, in 2023, working with the South West Heritage Trust and Somerset Wildlife Trust, they announced they had secured the necessary funding from the Town Deal Fund. Their plans and progress are extensively detailed on their website, you can read all their newsletters from 2008 onwards too. https://friendsofbridesmound.com/land-management/ and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgnvvje8deo

Despite the controversy surrounding other Town Deal projects, I assumed this one would be warmly welcomed by the community. Even those indifferent to the historical and spiritual importance of the site couldn’t possibly object to improved accessibility to the countryside for people with disabilities and the ongoing preservation of this 33-acre site from development.

July 2025 – Rumours of Destruction and Desecration

Fast forward two years to now (July 2025), and I started to see posts on Facebook suggesting that the Mound had been covered in concrete, trees chopped down, and a huge hole dug, ready to be filled with concrete and steel for a visitors’ centre designed to attract multitudes of tourists. One commentator reported that the destruction was so complete they had found it necessary to ‘move the leylines,’ which they found both inconvenient and distressing.

I needed to go along and have a look for myself.

I parked my trusty electric bike by the five-bar gate at the Morland Road entrance. I was immediately struck by how much more accessible the site was. I remembered past visits where I had to navigate rutted, muddy tracks. The pathway is gravel-topped with a layer of much finer sandy material. There’s no concrete or asphalt. I’d estimate it as being about 5 feet wide, so large enough for a couple of mobility scooters to pass each other. As it’s newly laid, it looks a bit drab, gray, and uniform, but I’m sure once it’s bedded in and the vegetation has begun to soften the edges, it will be no more offensive to the eye than the Sustrans Willow Way or the paths through the Avalon Marshes nature reserves.

Here are a couple of photos I took in January 2021:

Here is the new pathway, still under construction, taken in July 2025:

Following the path, I came to the mound. The same material has been used on top of the mound in a circle. Presently, it does slightly detract from the wild feel of the place, but if you’re going to facilitate people using mobility aids to visit the mound, you can’t abandon them to bumpy meadow when they get to the top. Besides, as the view encompasses a communications tower, the skate park, the industrial estate, and the sewage works, any illusions about this area being untamed wilderness have already been dispelled!

Which brings me to another point: the suggestion that Bride’s Mound is being gentrified to welcome hordes of tourists and that it should be reserved solely for spiritual ceremonies. The accessibility and environmental improvements to the site are not going to attract anyone without a genuine interest in the site’s history, mythology, or at least an appreciation for the countryside. It’s also worth noting that the site’s proximity to the sewage works ensures it will remain a place for genuine seekers and nature lovers, rather than a polished tourist trap. The current improvements are for those who truly appreciate the land, not for casual sightseers expecting a pristine, sanitized experience.

Unlike the Tor, the site will be accessible to those with mobility issues, and it will also be free to visit. Perhaps we will see an influx of disabled visitors to the town, particularly as the Town Deal money has enabled improved accessibility to other areas. If you have a problem with that, I don’t want to hear about it. You can read my guide to accessible Glastonbury, or at least the few bits that are actually accessible, here:

Pondering all this, I continued on the path towards what will be the official entrance to the site. I passed through the substantial orchard of fruit trees, eventually reaching the Heras fence around the building site for the Roundhouse, some 200 meters from the Mound. I snapped a photo. There is no huge hole, no megastructures of cement or steel, just a little digger and an equally small telehandler.

Looking back at Google Maps from September 2024, you can see the Roundhouse site is a slab of tarmac overtaken by scrub. In its place will be an eco-build roundhouse set in a garden for community use, four car park spaces, and a cycle park on a semi-permeable surface. The roundhouse will be raised off the ground, a showcase for eco-builds, with no cement used in its construction, there is no big hole..

I came away perplexed. I understand that part of the Mound’s appeal is in its discovery; indeed, it’s been so well hidden that the first time I visited, a few decades ago, I wasn’t even sure whether I’d found it! However, without the FOBM drawing people’s attention to the site, it would have disappeared under cement decades ago. The evidence of my own eyes told a very different story to the accounts of desecration and destruction that I’d read on social media.

Coffee, Cake, and a Chat

A few days later, I met up with ex-mayor and Green Party councillor Indra Don Francesco for coffee and cake in the garden of the new coffee and cake place on Magdalene Street.

She told me:

“I’m grateful there are so many people who really care, who are really watching, and are so passionate about the spirituality and history of Bride’s Mound. That’s exactly where the FOBM came from and how they started. They stopped it from becoming a lorry park. They have paid off three fields, saving them from development. They’ve brought in adaptation to flooding and brought back the wildlife habitats to how they were before the land was drained and the land and rivers were poisoned by the factories. The site could easily have been another industrial unit; it would have stopped the front access to the mound. Interestingly, sunrise on Bride’s Day (February 1st) will be in perfect alignment with the front door of the roundhouse; I’m not sure if that’s by accident or design.

The path is the same as what is used for Sustrans cycle paths. Grass will grow around it. The roundhouse won’t have foundations. It will be for community use at affordable hire costs. All the tarmac is coming up and being turned into a garden. The People’s Orchard is based on the model of a monastic garden.

The original plan was for a visitor’s centre, but that would have to be manned, and there isn’t the funding to do that. Somerset Heritage Trust wanted a shed with tiny windows and loads of power points — a classroom. Friends of Bride’s Mound have had to fight for their vision; they made sure that the project would honour Bride and the spiritual significance of the site as well as its historic importance. They will be marking out the foundations of the original outlines of the monastic chapel. They deserve credit. Nobody from Friends of Bride’s Mound has been paid; there will be one paid worker from the Somerset Wildlife Trust who will be creating a wildlife corridor connecting the fields to the Avalon marshes.

This has nothing to do with the World Heritage status exploration; the aim is not to attract tourists. It’s about inclusive access to land. It will give people of all abilities and ages access 24/7 for free. Let’s get behind and celebrate those quietly preserving Glastonbury’s spiritual, historic spaces. These groups, largely led by women, are celebrating our land in a respectful way, with no intention to restrict access or charge for entry.”

Misunderstanding About the Motives

From what I have seen, the FOBM respect the Mound as a site of great historical interest, an important place of pilgrimage, a vital wildlife corridor in an otherwise urbanized and polluted landscape that is home to diverse flora and fauna, a contributor to community resilience with its orchard, and a place to enjoy fresh air and nature that will be accessible to those with mobility issues. In the future, the roundhouse will be a useful community resource and an example of eco-building best practice. I don’t see any reason for conflict here. The path is gravel, not concrete; it not only improves accessibility on what is frequently a very muddy site in winter but also serves to protect the mound from erosion. Why a small number of people are suggesting that it somehow destroys the sanctity of the site, I have no idea. Glastonbury Tor was capped in concrete in the early 1990s and is still the focus of ceremonies and gatherings. This gravel path is far more sympathetic to the site and will enable older and less physically able people to gather in ceremony.

Unfortunately, the Town Deal page for Bride’s Mound detailed the ‘Key Project Themes’ as: Tackle Climate Change, Improve Health and Wellbeing, Enhanced Cultural Offer and Branding, Address COVID-19 Recovery. One of the stated project outcomes is ‘Bring more visitors to an historic site as part of the Glastonbury tourist trail.’ These poorly chosen terms, selected no doubt to suit the kind of unimaginative box-ticking necessary to secure funding, have acted like a red rag to a bull for some members of the community.

I hate box-ticking, I detest the word ‘branding,’ I resent how people are broken up into meaningless demographics, and as far as I’m concerned, the vast majority of those who come to our town are valued visitors, not tourists. However, the suggestion that the use of these terms reveals a plan by greedy, self-serving councillors and other community members to hand the town over to UNESCO and turn it into a theme park is quite frankly ludicrous. We should be celebrating the Friends of Bride’s Mound’s success in finally getting funding for these sensitive improvements to the site and its continued protection, not pillorying those who have worked tirelessly and without reward to stop it from getting covered up in a sea of concrete.

I have been living here since 1993, and I remember the town very well when we had a local council that blocked any initiatives the ‘alternative community’ proposed on principle. When the Tourist Information Centre flatly refused to promote the town as anything more than a market town with a ruined Abbey and some tea shops. When events and conferences scraped by, hoping to attract enough visitors to cover costs. The sacred days of the Celtic Year were celebrated out of public sight, in the Assembly Rooms or on the Tor; little happened on the High Street lest it frightened away the coach parties.

I always felt that Glastonbury, with its friendly, welcoming alternative community, had something to teach the world about tolerance, inclusivity, kindness, open-mindedness, and creativity. I was delighted when locals and incomers started to work together to welcome visitors, when ‘alternative’ ideas like concern for the environment started to become mainstream, and those with energy and enthusiasm got seats on the local council. Projects that would have once faced opposition started to get funding. I felt really positive about the future.

Now, there are plans to protest, to petition, to demand the resignations of our Green councillors over this issue. There’s even a call to assemble a thousand goddesses with spades to dig up the accessible path. If you are tempted to join in, please have a think about where this is likely to lead. Do those who have been acting to preserve Glastonbury’s spiritual and historical heritage deserve to find themselves pilloried, distrusted, and reviled in a hate campaign based on hysteria and supposition? Who would you like to see the Green Councillors replaced with? Do you really want to create a toehold for Reform in the Town? Are you prepared to stand up and say that you are against improving accessibility so that those with disabilities are free to enjoy nature and our sacred sites?

World Heritage Status?

Social media commentators are suggesting that the accessibility improvements were simply a cover, with the aim of the project to strengthen the case for World Heritage Status in Glastonbury. Now, I’m not at all convinced that World Heritage Status is a good idea for the Town; I wrote about it in a post in October 2024. I then had to add to the piece, asking people to stop putting the boot into local councillors and accusing them of being involved in a conspiracy to sell the town off to line their own pockets.

Since then, things have become even more polarised. The anti-WHS campaign has become beset with hysteria and ever more ridiculous accusations that draw everyone who is involved in local organisations or government into a web of conspiracy. A ridiculous sort of “join-the-dots” thinking has taken over, where the fact that individuals are involved in several local organisations or are connected to other individuals is taken as evidence of conspiracy. This is a small town; we have a community. People who are active in the community tend to wear several hats; they are also connected to other people who are active in the community. To see these connections as evidence of conspiracy in a small community is blatantly absurd and ultimately damaging. Active members of the community are being pilloried to the extent that they are resigning. Angry ranters are shouting over the top of people who are trying to have the kind of considered and reasonable discussions that could ultimately produce the best outcome for everyone. Nuanced discourse is being silenced. Taking part in any community endeavour risks becoming the focus of nastiness and mudslinging from a small but very vocal group.

All of this is resulting in an epidemic of ‘othering.’ It’s hard not to get drawn in when you find that every difference of opinion is seen not as the starting point of a reasoned discussion, but as an opportunity to take sides and get all righteous. Brexit and Covid started the rot, and now every discussion happens not on the High Street but on social media, where controversy and conflict are rewarded. Next time you get drawn in by a social media post claiming that ‘they’ are trying to destroy Glastonbury, have a think before calling for pitchforks at dawn.

It’s been making it hard for me to write about the town. I accidentally made celebrating the community my job by starting this blog, but it’s hard to be enthusiastic right now. I honestly didn’t think things could get worse, but the level of hysteria and hyperbole being generated over Bride’s Mound is astounding. The Friends of Bride’s Mound have been active for thirty years and are the only reason this site isn’t a lorry park. They have been totally open about their plans for a path and structure for the site for 16 years. They put in a huge amount of effort to secure funding. All of this has been conducted out in the open; a simple Google search will find it all documented.

I get that some people feel that the gravel takes away from the site’s sanctity, but how about giving it a few months and seeing how it settles? How about giving a bit of thought towards people with disabilities who are looking forward to being able to spend some time in nature? How about entering into a respectful and polite discourse with the Friends of Bride’s Mound? We are in a community. The Friends of Bride’s Mound have shown themselves to be stalwart guardians of the land; these are real people who live around the corner from you. Stop attacking them and accusing them of being involved in a nefarious plot, and they will most likely be up for a chat. We all want our sacred sites protected, we all want a better environment for humans and nature, we all want to live in a kind and caring community. We are all on the same side.

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