Day 6 - Glastonbury, Bath

Today was a trip to Glastonbury, specifically the ruins of the abbey. The abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. It must have been huge judging by what is left. The custodians have marked out where the walls would have been, as well as things like the high altar.

The abbey is supposed to be the burial place of the legendary king, Arthur and his wife, Guinevere. Arthur had been mortally wounded and taken to the isle of Avalon; at this time, Glastonbury would have been an island. It is said he was buried in the cemetery on the south side of the Lady Chapel, at Glastonbury Abbey between two stone pyramids and at great depth. Henry II asked the Abbot to dig within the ancient Saxon graveyard for the bones of Arthur, as he had information from a Welsh bard that Arthur was buried here.

The monks began digging to locate the grave, and in 1191 they discovered a huge oak coffin beneath a lead cross bearing the inscription Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arturius in insula Avalonia, which is often interpreted as reading 'Here lies King Arthur buried in Avalon'. The coffin contained two bodies - a great man and a woman, whose golden hair was still intact, until touched, when it crumbled away. The bodies were said to be Arthur's and Guinevere's. The bones were then moved to a tomb in the South Transept.

In 1278 King Edward I and Queen Eleanor came to the abbey to oversee the final transfer to a beautifully decorated black marble tomb before the high altar. They wrapped the bones in precious cloth, placed them in decorative caskets, they then placed the caskets into the black marble tomb which remained at the abbey until it was destroyed during the Dissolution in 1539.

After Glastobury, we drove to Bath. The first stop was a tour of the Baths - originally Roman but also used and updated in Georgian times. You aren't allowed to touch the water these days since a tourist got meningitis some years ago. At the end of the walk through, there is a source of the water that has been treated, and you can have a drink of it there - it is quite warm and slightly salty.

The Baths were interesting.  There are displays with some of the old coins found inside, bones, and some of the old Roman carvings. There are number of rooms in the old Baths - the Hot room, the Warm room - these looked like they may have been saunas. There is the East Bath and the West Bath and the main Bath, this is the one you always see the pictures of. 

After the Baths, we walked around Bath itself for a while. It is an interesting old town.