GLASTONBURY, (Somerset) 103 cm. 120 mm. from London, is in a manner encompassed with rs. and was of old called the isle of
Avalon. By the ruins, here appears to have been the most magnificent abbey in the world; and such was its antiquity, that
it has been called the Mother of All-Saints, &c. The Saxon Ks. as perhap the British had done before them, loaded it with
revenues; and the abbot lived in almost as much state as the royal donors, with an income of 40,000 l. a year; and a vast
tract of rich land, which he could see from the Tor, in his own possession, exclusive of 7 deer parks bel. to his abbey,
which is walled round a m. in com. and was rated in the K's. book, at 700 l. a year more than the Abpk. of Canterbury, and
2000 l. a year more than the Bpk. of Durham. The abbot had the title of Ld. and sat among the Barons in Pt. There were 61
abbots who governed it successively, for near 600 years; and had such power, by a grant from K. Canute the Dane, that,
without their leave, no person whatever, not even Bp. or Prince durst set a foot in the isle of Avalon. At the Diss. there
were 100 monks in it; and the abbot kept 300 domestics (some of them gentlemen's sons) who were lodged in the adjacent
houses. Rich. Whiting, who was the last abbot, for refusing to surrender his abbey to K. Hen. VIII. &c. was condemned at
Wells, and carried, with 2 of his monks, in a hurdle to the Tor, where he was hanged in his pontificalibus on St.
Michaels-Tower; his head set on the gate of his abbey, and his quarters disposed of at Bath, Wells, Bridgewater, and
Ilchester. This Tor, so called from the tower which stands on it, is a hill so high, that it is an excellent sea-mark; but
its ascent is so difficult, that probably the raising of the stones to the top of it cost more than the building of the
Ch. there. Though it is in ruins, yet there is still to be seen the figure of the archangel with the balance in his hands,
having a bible in one scale, and a devil in the other; to which another devil hangs, but they are both too light for the
bible. As to the hawthorn here, said to have first taken root from a staff stuck in the ground by Joseph of Arimathea, and
to blossom on Christmas-day only of all the days in the year, it is very dubious, whether that Joseph was ever in Britain;
and though, it is certain, there was a hawthorn-tree in the abbey Ch.-yard, and that it was cut down in the time of the
civil wars, yet it is false that the branches of it, that were saved and planted in the neighbourhood, bud always or only
upon. Christmas-day; for they blossom sometimes 3 or 4 days after, and seldom so soon as Christmas-day unless the weather
be exceeding mild. Edgar and many other Saxon Kgs. were interred in its abbey-Ch. as was also, in Mr. Camden's opinion, K.
Arthur. Every cottage here has part of a pillar, a door or a window of this fabric; of which there still remain the ruins
of the choir, the middle tower, and chapels; and there is nothing left entire of the abbot's lodging, but the kitchen,
which was built by one of the abbots of stone, without any combustible material, in defiance of one of our Kgs. who,
having been affronted by the abbot, threatened to burn it about his ears, as a part of the convent which he knew the
Epicurean herd could least spare. The walls that remain of the abbey are overgrown with ivy, and the aspect of the whole
is both melancholy and venerable. Here are 2 p. Chs. This T. while under the protection of its abbots, was a parliamentary
Bor. but it lost that and its privilege of a corp. the later of which was, however, restored by Q. Anne, who granted it a
new charter for a mayor and burgesses, by the interest of its recorder Sir Peter King, (afterwards Ld. Chan.) whose father
was born here. The only mf. here is stockings, but the chief support of the place is the resort of people to see the ruins
of the abbey. The George inn here was formerly called the Abbot's inn; because it was a receptacle for the strollers that
came in pilgrimage to the abbey. The manor was given by K. Rich. III. to Brockenbury lieutenant of the Tower, for his
concurrence in the murder of the 2 young princes his prisoners. In the R. of Edw. VI. a Church of foreign Protestants was
planted here, who being for most part worsted-weavers, the then D. of Somerset, to whom the abbey was granted, settled
them here by an indenture, with a promise to lend them money to buy wool, &c. for their mf. and allowed them lodgings; but
the popish Q. Mary was no sooner on the throne, than she ordered them to depart. The site of the abbey and land has been
since transferred to the family of the D. of Devonshire The Mt. here is on Tu. and the Fairs on Sept. 8 and 29, which are
mostly frequented for horses and fat cattle. The Isle of Avalon gives title of Visc. to the Earl of Peterborough. At a
little distance from the old Ch. and facing the monks Ch.-yard, are 2 remarkable pyramids, with inscriptions, that are in
characters unintelligible, and an image in Bp's. vestments.