A FLEETING visit to Somerset enabled us to make quick visits to places like Wells and Glastonbury, the latter catching our attention before the crowds arrived for the noted festival of arts and music.

This year it was held between June 25 and 29, with an anticipated crowd of around 135,000 each of whom would pay £205 for a ticket. It is taking place as I write these notes, so I do not have the final figures, but the first of the modern Glastonbury Festivals, held in 1970, cost £1 and a crowd of 1500 arrived. The follow year entrance was free. Although the current festivals did not begin until 1970, there was a series of musical events in Glastonbury between 1914 and 1926 – all rather more refined that their successors.

With an intention to visit Glastonbury before the festival began, our drive to the busy small town of Street took us along a lofty ridge, below which was the Somerset Levels.

They are now apparently free from the flood waters of past winter but still paying the cost of the damage.

The area known as Sedgemoor lies below sea level and it is renowned for its crop of withies – young shoots of pollarded willow trees – which are used in basket-making and wickerwork furnishings.

Drainage of this low-lying land began as long ago as 1400, and, at the time of Charles I (1600-1649), it was often covered with sea-water. Today’s drainage depends on a system of ditches known as drains or rhines, but these date from the 17th to 19th centuries and require constant maintenance. Some of them are rather narrow and winding, but the King’s Sedgemoor Drain is around twenty miles long and almost straight, albeit with a few long curves.

The Rivers Brue and Parrett also help with the drainage of this region as they flow toward the Bristol Channel.

From our elevated route, and indeed from places like Street, the distinctive conical-shaped Glastonbury Tor seems to tower above the surrounding landscape with its towns and villages, and was almost beckoning us to call.

As I had previously visited the 525 ft high Tor (158m), I decided that an immediate return could wait until I had completed other projects.

However, I will provide a little information here. Glastonbury has long been a place of mystery, one story being that Joseph of Arimathea arrived from the Holy Land to convert the English, stuck his staff into the ground and leant upon it in prayer, when it took root to produce the Holy Thorn of Glastonbury which is said to bloom at Christmas.

A local thorn tree does in fact produce blossom around Christmas, and it is said a religious foundation was here as early as the 5th century. An abbey was commenced in 688 with expansion occurring in the 13th century but it was completed just in time for Henry VIII to destroy it when he dissolved the monasteries.

So far as the Tor is concerned, it was once surrounded by the sea and its old name Ynys Wydryn means Island of Glass; indeed, several lake-villages once existed on flat low-lying land around the Tor. It is said St Patrick visited the Tor, and it became a place of pilgrimages for Catholics with the George Inn in the village being one of few in this country to have survived from Pre-Reformation times.

A succession of churches was built on the summit, one of which was made of wood but was later destroyed in an earthquake in 1257. Remains of a Saxon wheel cross have been found on the Tor but the current roofless tower is all that remain of St Michael’s Church, built in the 14th century but frequently restored.

The tower was associated with Glastonbury Abbey but Henry VIII ordered its dissolution and the execution of its last abbot on Glastonbury Tor on November, 15, 1539.

From the earliest times, Glastonbury and its Tor have been associated with mysticism, religion and legend. The Arthurian legends associate Glastonbury with King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, claiming that Glastonbury is the true Avalon. The Holy Grail sought by his knights was said to have been brought to Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea and that it is now hidden below the Chalice Spring on the Tor.

Modern pilgrims continue to be attracted by Glastonbury and a walk around the town and up to the top of the Tor does reveal a prevailing strange air of mysticism and even magic.

Not far away is another place of mystery. It is Wookey Hole, the name coming from the Old English wocig meaning a trap for animals. This is a series of caves, some of which are floodlit, and through which flows the River Axe before widening into a lake.

The caves are also the source of the legend about the Witch of Wookey Hole, a tale that was corroborated in 1912 when the skeleton of a woman was found buried here, with a sacrificial knife nearby beside a dagger. A large stalagmite is now known as The Witch of Wookey Hole but it seems there may be some twenty caves in this limestone region.

Before renewing my acquaintance with Glastonbury and its Tor, we spent the morning in Wells whose narrow streets and mighty cathedral are very reminiscent of York. It was market day and very busy, and so we headed for the calm of the 12th century cathedral’s cloisters, entering the lawned area via the Penniless Porch, appropriately containing a beggar who was seeking our charity.

This is where the beggars formerly stood in the hope of donations from passing churchgoers.

This narrow passage opened onto the cathedral green where the amazing west front dominates the view. This is one of the finest in Britain for it is And while we’re having a whinge, why was the tour filmed on a mobile phone?

Everyone spent an awful lot of time decorating their houses and businesses only for them and the cyclists – not to adorned with the carved stone statues of almost 400 saints, angels and prophets. The largest is St Andrew who is the cathedral’s patron saint.

Immediately evident, however, is that the bottom two rows of statutes are either missing or severely mutilated, but not through corrosion. Of the original 400 or so, about 300 remain.

Some damage was due to centuries of weather and other corrosion which has since been addressed, but the missing statutes were the result of the Reformation when the child king, Edward VI (aged 9), ordered the destruction and removal from churches of everything associated with Catholicism. The Catholic Mass was made illegal by the Act of Uniformity in 1549 following which he ordered that icons and statutes of saints be removed or destroyed, and wall paintings of biblical scenes to be whitewashed to conceal the pictures.

A tour of the interior is fascinating but the most intriguing object is the famous Wells Clock. Dating from 1390, it is still in use and all its parts are original; it is the second oldest clock mechanism in Britain and probably the world, whilst its face is the oldest known anywhere.