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Name | Glastonbury |
Alt names | Glastonbury Abbey | source: medieval abbey just outside the town | | Bickery | source: hamlet in borough | | Brindham | source: hamlet in borough | | Edgarly | source: hamlet in borough | | Northover in Glastonbury | source: hamlet in borough | | Norwood Park | source: residence for the abbey |
Type | Ancient parish, Civil parish, Borough (municipal) |
Coordinates | 51.15°N 2.4°W |
Located in | Somerset, England |
See also | Glaston Twelve Hides Hundred, Somerset, England | hundred in which it was located | | Mendip District, Somerset, England | district in which Glastonbury has been located since 1974 |
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Glastonbury (#G on map) is civil parish with a town of the same name in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels,23 miles (37 km) south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip District, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 UK census. Glastonbury is less than 1 mile (2 km) across the River Brue from the town of Street, which is now larger than Glastonbury.
Evidence from timber trackways such as the Sweet Track show that the town has been inhabited since Neolithic times. Glastonbury Lake Village was an Iron Age village, close to the old course of the River Brue and Sharpham Park approximately 2 miles (3 km) west of Glastonbury, that dates back to the Bronze Age.
Centwine was the first Saxon patron of Glastonbury Abbey, which dominated the town for the next 700 years. One of the most important abbeys in England, it was the site of Edmund Ironside's coronation as King of England in 1016. Many of the oldest surviving buildings in the town, including the Tribunal, George Hotel and Pilgrims' Inn and the Somerset Rural Life Museum, which is based in an old tithe barn and Norwood Park (a residence for the abbey now known as Norwood Park Farm), are associated with the abbey. The Church of St John the Baptist dates from the 15th century.
The town became a centre for commerce, which led to the construction of the market cross, Glastonbury Canal and the Glastonbury and Street railway station, the largest station on the original Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway.
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Glastonbury has been described as a New Age community which attracts people with New Age and Neopagan beliefs, and is notable for myths and legends often related to Glastonbury Tor, concerning Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and King Arthur. Joseph is said to have arrived in Glastonbury and stuck his staff into the ground, when it flowered miraculously into the Glastonbury Thorn.
Glastonbury is in the local government district of Mendip, within the county of Somerset. From 1889 to 1974 it was administered as a muncipal borough. In the 19th century and before it was part of the Glaston Twelve Hides Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Somerset. In 1894 the western section of Glastonbury was removed from the parish and formed into the new parish of Sharpham (#10 on map).
Suburbs
Glastonbury covers a wide area and within it are communities with their own names. One is Edgarley, located to the southeast of the centre, there are also Brindham (to the north) and Bickery and Northover (to the west). These have all been redirected here. It should be noted that this is not Northover which is a former parish, now a part of Ilchester.
History
For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Glastonbury.
Glastonbury Abbey
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery just outside Glastonbury. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction.
The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It was destroyed by a major fire in 1184, but subsequently rebuilt and by the 14th century was one of the richest and most powerful monasteries in England. The abbey controlled large tracts of the surrounding land and was instrumental in major drainage projects on the Somerset Levels. The abbey was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII. The last abbot, Richard Whiting (Whyting), was hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor on Glastonbury Tor in 1539.
From at least the 12th century the Glastonbury area has been associated with the legend of King Arthur, a connection promoted by medieval monks who asserted that Glastonbury was Avalon. Christian legends have claimed that the abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century.
Research Tips
- GENUKI page on Glastonbury.
- The first of a series of four articles on Glastonbury from the Victoria History of the Counties of England – History of the County of Somerset, produced by The Institute of Historical Research.
- The Somerset Heritage Centre (incorporating what was formerly the Somerset Record Office and the Somerset Local Studies Library) can be found at its new location at Langford Mead in Taunton. It has an online search facility leading to pages of interest, including maps from the First and Second Ordnance Survey (select "Maps and Postcards" from the list at the left, then enter the parish in the search box).
The Heritage Centre has an email address: archives@somerset.gov.uk.
- Three maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrate the changes in political boundaries over the period 1830-1945. All have expanding scales and on the second and third this facility is sufficient that individual parishes can be inspected.
- Somerset Hundreds as drawn in 1832. This map was prepared before The Great Reform Act of that year. Note the polling places and representation of the various parts of the county.
- Somerset in 1900, an Ordnance Survey map showing rural districts, the boundaries of the larger towns, the smaller civil parishes of the time, and some hamlets and villages in each parish
- Somerset in 1943, an Ordnance Survey map showing the rural districts after the changes to their structure in the 1930s
- Maps provided by the National Library of Scotland are also very useful. This map is currently set to an area now in the Sedgmoor District as it existed in the late 19th century, but can be moved to anywhere in the county using a variety of background maps. There is a very good search facility.
- A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in the county
- GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish. The emphasis here is on ecclesiastical parishes (useful before 1837)
- A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 and tables of the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. The compiler has gone to a lot of work to provide this material. Respect his copyright.
- The FamilySearch Wiki for Somerset provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
- English Jurisdictions, a supplementary website to FamilySearch outlining local parish boundaries in the middle on the 19th century. The information provided is especially useful for establishing the relationship of the ecclesiastical parishes in large towns and cathedral cities.
- The Victoria History of the Counties of England – History of the County of Somerset, produced by The Institute of Historical Research at the University of London is a scholarly website with articles tracing the history of individual parishes which are sorted into their hundreds, the early subdivisions of the county. It traces the ownership of estates and manors, describes the local church in detail, and usually provides a map of each parish. The volumes for Somerset are much more recent than those for other counties. It appears to be a work in progress, only covering about half the county so far. A map of the places covered in the series is given in Volume 6, but 3 more volumes have been published since then. If a parish is included there will be a note in its Research Tips.
- The Somerset and Dorset Family History Society
- The Weston super Mare Family History Society
- The Bristol and Avon Family History Society
- A list of all Somerset parishes with online transcripts of parish registers The size of Somerset makes this a huge project. If it does not yield what you are looking for, try getting in touch with the organizer with patience and politeness.
- Somerset Online Parish Clerk project home page
- A collection of West Somerset Parish Register Transcriptions are online courtesy of Martin Southwood
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