Glastonbury Tor is a steep conical hill in the Somerset levels, crowned by a ruined church tower, that has drawn to itself an unusual density of legend, Christian and otherwise.
Abbey, Avalon and Arthur
The nearby Glastonbury Abbey was one of the wealthiest and most important monasteries in medieval England, and it actively cultivated its legends. In 1191 its monks announced they had found the graves of King Arthur and Guinevere on the site, a discovery most historians read as a medieval fundraising exercise after a fire. Glastonbury was also identified with the Isle of Avalon and linked, from the later Middle Ages, to Joseph of Arimathea, said to have brought the Holy Grail and planted a thorn tree that flowers at Christmas. The Tor itself, once nearly surrounded by marsh and water, made a plausible "isle" for such stories.
The Christian tower
The tower on the summit is the surviving remnant of the medieval church of St Michael, an earlier version of which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275. The terraces spiralling around the hill's slopes have been read by some as the remains of an ancient ritual labyrinth, though they may equally be agricultural or natural; the question is unresolved.
A modern sacred magnet
Since the twentieth century Glastonbury has become a principal centre of alternative and earth-centred spirituality in Britain, drawing Pagans, Goddess devotees, New Age practitioners and seekers of many kinds, alongside continuing Christian pilgrimage. The town below hosts a Goddess temple and an annual Goddess conference. The Tor is owned by the National Trust and freely open; the coincidence of Christian, Arthurian and Pagan devotion on one hill is precisely what makes it distinctive.