It was regarded as being religiously significant by the Celts that at the time of the Winter Solstice the sunrise would appear to the Lake Villagers exactly over the Tor as would the southernmost moonrise of each year. In my blog posting of August 22, 2017, I discussed the Celtic Lake Village which was a few miles northwest of Glastonbury and the Tor. Its tower remains today at the top of the hill. A 10 th century chapel on the Tor was destroyed by a 13 th century earthquake with the priory church being rebuilt in the 14 th century. Since the Conquest, there are better records of the monastic developments on the Tor. This has led to considerable speculation about its use by various groups including pre-Christian Celts, Romano-British people, Celtic Christians, Anglo-Saxon Christians in the pre-Norman Conquest period. A small Christian priory, Saint Michael’s, stood atop the Tor in 1397, and some interaction between the monks and the Druids plays out in Joseph of Arimathea’s Treasure.Īrchaeology has produced finds from at least the Iron Age, so we know that the Tor has been occupied or visited regularly for millenia.
To do this, I have introduced two Druids, a man and his mother from a remote part of Ireland, who come to Glastonbury with a mission related to Glastonbury Tor. Because of ties between Glastonbury Abbey and Cornwall and the Tor’s ancient importance to the Celts, I decided to include some Celtic characters in the story who have a keen religious interest in the Tor as part of the novel. Glastonbury Tor, as shown in the picture, plays a major role in my story. It may also have been the location of a Romano-British shrine well before the Christian era. There is some evidence of Christian activity on the Tor even earlier than we know of its existence in the town.
The dominant topographic feature of the entire area is Glastonbury Tor, a hill which rises 520 feet above the town and the Somerset Levels which surround it. Glastonbury in 1397 is the setting for Joseph of Arimathea’s Treasure, the fifth novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mystery Series.
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