Glastonbury
[key], town, Somerset, SW England. It has a leather industry, but
Glastonbury is famous for its religious associations and many legends. One
legend tells that St. Joseph of
Arimathea founded the first Christian church in England
there. On Wearyall Hill he is said to have rested his staff, which rooted
and became the Glastonbury thorn, blooming annually on Christmas Eve.
Another story identifies Glastonbury as the Isle of Avalon of Arthurian legend. Glastonbury Abbey was
a center of learning in the Middle Ages, and the legends made it an object
of pilgrimage, helping to make the abbey one of the richest in Western
Europe. Extensive remains of an Iron Age lake village have been found
nearby, and there is evidence of a glass-making complex dating to Saxon
times (c. a.d. 700).
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