INTRODUCTION
The Tower of the chapel of St. Michael on
Glastonbury Tor can be seen from great distances across
central Somerset, but close at hand it dominates. It
symbolises with great accuracy both the power of the
religious community which built it and the revolution
which brought that power to an end. The legends which
associate the Tor with the Dark-Age Melwas, king of the
summer country, and St. Patrick were part of a tradition
which made the site a place of medieval pilgrimage. (fn. 1) The
choice of the Tor as the place of execution of Abbot
Whiting and two of his fellow monks was in 1539 a statement of political power; at the end of the 19th century it
provided a focus for revived pilgrimage which continues
in the 21st.
East, south, and west of the Tor is a landscape which
formed the immediate heart of the Glastonbury abbey
estate: the moors to the south of the Hartlake river which
developed into the rich pastures of Hearty moor and
Norwood park; the wooded landscape towards Pennard
Hill, including West Bradley and North Wootton; and
the Brue valley between Baltonsborough and Butleigh
where moors contrast with the wooded ridge sheltering
Compton Dundon beyond. Directly west is the broad
valley of the Brue, in the Middle Ages dominated by large
areas of moor whose value was proclaimed by regular
disputes over rights to graze cattle and sheep, to catch
fish and fowl, or to dig fuel.
FIG. 2. Glastonbury Tor from Sharpham Park, 1843
Until the dissolution of Glastonbury the surrounding
manors provided the abbey with rent, produce, raw
materials, and labour. Among specific produce were
milk and cheese from several dairies, fish and fowl from
the great mere at Meare, and grazing for the evermoving abbey sheep flocks. Raw materials included firewood from Baltonsborough and West Pennard, and
stone from Street and possibly Walton. The vineyard at
Glastonbury, the park at Pilton, and transport of men
and goods all involved many individual labourers from
onote idrs The abbey and its estate, giving employment
to a significant group of specialist laymen in
support of the religious community, created the town
around the abbey precinct.
FIG. 3. View from Walton
Hill to Dundon Beacon
and Compton Dundon,
c. 1920
That town, seen for a short time after the Dissolution
as a possible cloth-making centre and, incidentally, also
as a centre for continental Protestants, suffered from
the consequences of the dismemberment of the abbey
estate. By the 18th century it had achieved selfgovernment and a manufacturing base but was essentially a small market town dependent on a small and
under-producing hinterland. In the 19th century
improved communications first by canal and later by rail
across the moors from the west improved marketing
possibilities for those places along its route. Earlier the
firm of C. & J. Clark of Street had harnessed the skills of
local tanners and shoemakers beginning a business
which in less than a century had international standing.
Enlightened attitudes among successive generations of
the Clark family combined with commerical acumen
turned the village of Street and its adjoining hamlets into
a significant town. In the 20th century Glastonbury
came to represent heritage in contrast to the commerce
of Street.