[Magdalen] St Michael's, Glastonbury Tor.

M J [Mike] Logsdon mjl at ix.netcom.com
Mon Sep 22 11:57:55 PDT 2014


I confess to being obsessed with this thing.  Mainly in how the modern description of its past jives with today's physical reality.  From Wikipedia:

"St Michael's Church survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 when, except for the tower, it was demolished....  The three-storey tower of St Michael's Church survives.  It has corner buttresses and perpendicular bell openings.  There is a sculptured tablet with an image of an eagle below the parapet."

I've looked at several aerial photos, and for the life of me I can't figure out where the rest of the church was in relation to the hill.  There simply appears to be no room, unless what was destroyed was very, very small.  Plus, why no ruins whatsoever of what was destroyed?  (If there are any, the photos I've seen don't do them justice.)

And if you want a real treat, look up Glastonbury Tor on Google Earth.  The shadow of the tower is there, but not the tower.  Or is it what appears to be lying lengthwise across the top, and we're only talking an unavoidable trick of that sort of photography?
_________________________________________
"O perplexed discomposition, O riddling
distemper, O miserable condition of man!"
- The Rev Mr John Donne
(in a not-so-chipper moment)


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