Glastonbury - A "Tor" Guide...

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you!

Sorry it's been so long. I had been planning to write another entry about the town of Glastonbury describing some of the characters we observed. Indeed, I have written it. Several times - that's what too k the time. It's just that every time I read it back it comes over as either patronising or snarky or both. Since I don't want to be either of those things it would appear that the second instalment of our excursion down Glastonbury High Street will have to be postponed indefinately.

A little bit of Hobbiton.

Instead, let me take you on a walk up Glastonbury Tor, that iconic hill that rises from the flat plain around the town and dominates the skyline for miles around.

The Tor is, without question, beautiful. Green and lush, with an enigmatic tower at its peak. You can, should you be feeling energetic, walk up from the town - there are signs and everything. Alternatively you can do what I did and catch the "Tor Bus", operated by Mendip Community Transport from its stop in the Abbey car-park. This little bus will take you most of the way up the hill, dropping you at the closest point the road gets to the summit for the modest sum of three quid - or a quid fifty if you're under sixteen or seven fifty if you're a family of two adults and two children. It saves a lot of time and even more effort. And I'm lazy.

Don't be fooled though. Even if you cheat and catch the bus you still have a steep climb ahead of you. regrettably if you have mobility problems or use a wheelchair this climb is probably not for you. Everybody else? Make sure you're wearing decent shoes and get yourself up there - trust me, the climb is worth it. Steep, yes. Utterly knackering, yes. But worth it.

This was quite late in the day -  just look how busy it is!

As you can see from the picture above, the side of the hill is terraced - a remnant of early farming - and the path to the summit winds its merry way along those terraces, Impatient walkers might be tempted to take a more direct route, but you really shouldn't. For a start - and I don't care how fit you think you are - the path is leg crampingly, energy sappingly steep. Eschewing the path and taking the direct route would be harder still. Seriously, you're on holiday.

Besides, the National Trust, who look after the site, implore you not to do so. Climbing the Tor is a hugely popular endeavour - it's something that the vast majority of tourists want to do. The damage that a few hundred thousand visiting feet could do in terms of erosion doesn't bear thinking about - and it should be remembered that this iconic little hill is more than just a tourist attraction. It is also an ancient site that probably still has a lot of archaeology to turn up. Having seen many ancient sites half destroyed by the gentle footsteps of over keen tourists, I was pleased to see most people did indeed stick to the path.

A tower of tourists on a Tor.

The pinnacle of the Tor is dominated by the restored fifteenth century grey stone ediface of St. Michael's Tower - the surviving remnant of the hill's long service as a site of Christian worship, a heritage which reaches back as far as medieval times.

The first church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275 - which I guess can only be regarded as unfortunate - and it's replacement, of which the tower was a part, survived until the dissolution of the monastaries.

As ruined church towers go (there's no roof, doors or window panes) it's actually pretty unremarkable, although as a result of the significance of the location it does merit a Grade 1 listing - and there's no question that it adds a certain character tow what would otherwise be a small isolated hilltop with nothing to recommend it but the view. (About which, more later...)

The history of human occupation of this hill goes back much further though. The terracing may well be neolithic - neolithic stone tools have certainly been found there, and there is evidence that there was a late Roman fort in the fifth century.

It's plainer from the other side...

Everything else is pretty much speculation. There's no evidence that I'm aware of for any kind of pre-Christian ritual use, but as the only high point for literally miles around it makes sense to me that ancient peoples would have used it for something.

Perhaps it was agricultural - the terracing is certainly suggestive of that, just as it is reminiscent of the terracing of the hill forts that dot the South West. The hill would certainly have been a strong defensive position in the past, back when this region of he Somerset Levels - known as the "Somerset Meadows" - was significantly wetter and the Tor was more of an island than a hill.

Who knows? Perhaps they just went up to look at the view. Because the view is spectacular! This is, frankly somewhat unsurprising. We're from Yorkshire, a country with more than a few hills, so from our point of view the Tor isn't especially high.

It is however the only naturally sticky up thing in what is basically a pancake flat landscape. There is nothing at all to get in the way. The result is this:

The landscape just sort of rolls away forever...

Doesn't matter which direction...

It's just endless.

And it's beautiful.

Of course, from a "Tourist Attraction" perspective, it's a good job that the view is so spectacular because there's not a lot else to do once you've struggled up to the summit. Did I mention it was steep?

It's really steep.

I sat for some time drinking in the view, and then began to "people watch" a little bit. It seems to me that there were three categories of people on the summit of the Tor that day. The first, and by far the largest was the "general tourist". People like me who were in the area on holiday and had climbed the Tor primarily because they were interested in seeing the view and because it's one of the things you do when you're in Glastonbury. This group covered all ages, from little kids to senior citizens. We were mostly a relaxed crowd, some in shorts and sandals, some in wind proof jackets and walking boots. All reaching the top with comments along the lines of "Blimey, that was steep", "What a view!", and of course "I'm knackered!".

Then there were the quiet, contemplative types. Mostly in their twenties, mostly wearing nepalese shirts and baggy cotton trousers. All keeping themselves to themselves and either gazing out at the view or just sort of meditating. I remember in particular one guy sitting in a green sleeping bag in the shelter of one of the tower's buttresses. His hand rested on a gallon bottle of scrumpy, a (thankfully unplayed) digeridoo propped up beside him, calm grey eyes taking in everything around him. These were people who had made the ascent in search of something. Perhaps spiritual enlightenment, perhaps themselves. Who knows? Whatever it was, I hope they found it.

The final, and thankfully smallest, group was made up of people who would like to think of themselves as belonging to the quiet, contemplative types. Again, mostly twenty somethings they differed from the contemplatives in several ways. Most noticeably they were anything but quiet. At some point they'd read a book, or at least the blurb on the back of a book, with the word "spiritual" in the title and celtic knotwork on the cover, and they wanted everyone to know about it. They were embodied by a girl dressed in beige cotton trousers, strappy leather sandals and a cream granddad shirt that looked to be made of rough silk.

She ran a perfectly manicured hand through her long auburn hair, the many bangles adorning her wrist jangling like the shop bell at Harrods. "You see, the thing is," she fixed her slightly embarrassed friend with a serious stare, "I don't feel I really have to go to India now, because, it's like, in me." She gave those auburn curls a well practised toss. "I mean, I've just, like, absorbed so much spiritually," she paused and gazed sightlessly towards the horizon, an expression of studied serenity on her exquisitely made up visage, "I just feel I need to stay, y'know rooted".

The man in the green sleeping bag took a long,l slow swig of scrumpy and rolled his eyes before leaning back against the stonework of the tower and directing his thoughts to less irritating things.

I wandered out of earshot, gazed back out at the view and was rewarded with a flypast.

This was one of three Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters that spent rather a long time dancing around the hill. I presume that they were on a training sortie from the Royal Naval Airstation at Yeovilton about thirteen miles to the south. As I may have mentioned before I'm something of an aircraft enthusiast and random encounters with aircraft like this are one of the real joys of travelling for me.

This was a genuinely exciting encounter for me. At the time I was standing at the top of the Tor in the summer of 2015 the Wildcat had only just entered front line service with the Navy. Designed to operate from frigates and destroyers the Wildcat is a multi-role aircraft designed for troop transport, casualty evacuation, anti ship operations, anti submarine operations and frankly, whatever else needs to be done. Watching them was rather fun - and just for the record, we'll be visiting Yeovilton in a future post.

For me though, time was up.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen and I needed to get back to the 'van.

So, that's it from the Snail for 2015.

I hope you've had a good year, and that wherever your travels take you in 2016, the road is smooth and unfettered by jams.

It would be wrong of me to sign off, however, without mentioning the flooding in the North of England and in Scotland. Floods have hit many of the places we have visited with the Road Snail. Killin and Stonehaven in Scotland, and of course huge swathes of Cumbria - as well as Yorkshire, where the Snail is based.

If you're going away in a caravan or motorhome in 2016, go and visit some of these places. They're open for business, and frankly it's your business they need. The places that have been most seriously hit are largely tourist economies. Go and support them. We'll see you there.