Visiting Glastonbury, United Kingdom: Top Sights on Foot

Glastonbury is a town in England known for its medieval abbey, the legendary Glastonbury Tor and a distinctive spiritual and cultural identity. The best things to do in Glastonbury combine major historic sites, churches and museums with the landscapes and stories that have shaped the town for centuries. Neywo has a free audio guide for Glastonbury with 7 narrated places, available in 11 languages.

What to See in Glastonbury

Glastonbury Abbey

Glastonbury Abbey is one of the town’s central attractions. The former Benedictine monastery was once among the richest and most powerful religious houses in England, developing over several centuries before a devastating fire in 1184 led to further rebuilding.

Its ruins still suggest the scale of the medieval church. Gothic columns and surviving presbytery walls stand among lawns and mature trees, while the former Chapel of Edgar was described as a mausoleum for Saxon kings. The fourteenth-century kitchen is particularly well preserved. Its square structure, hipped roof and overlapping octagonal towers were designed to help carry smoke away from the interior.

The Lady Chapel is another striking surviving feature, built from Doulting stone with an ornate design. The abbey also played a role in the history of the Somerset Levels: by the fourteenth century, it controlled extensive surrounding lands and was involved in drainage projects.

Glastonbury Tor and St Michael’s Tower

Glastonbury Tor is the distinctive conical hill rising from the Somerset Levels. At its summit stands the roofless tower of St Michael’s Church, the most visible remnant of the fourteenth-century church.

The Tor is linked with Welsh mythology, the Isle of Avalon and King Arthur. Its unusual terraces remain difficult to explain, while the hill itself was formed from clay and Blue Lias, with softer deposits eroding around a harder sandstone cap.

People visited the Tor from at least the Iron Age through the Roman era. Later buildings on the summit have been interpreted as an early church and a monks’ hermitage. The earlier wooden church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275, and a stone church was built on the site in the fourteenth century. Today, St Michael’s Tower stands alone above the hill and remains one of Glastonbury’s defining sights.

Somerset Rural Life Museum

The Somerset Rural Life Museum explores the county’s social and agricultural history through buildings, machinery, crafts and stories of everyday life. Its centrepiece is a remarkable fourteenth-century barn that once belonged to Glastonbury Abbey.

The barn stored arable produce, especially wheat and rye, from the abbey’s home farm of about 524 acres. Threshing and winnowing also took place inside. It is known as an abbey barn rather than a tithe barn because it is not believed to have stored tithe payments.

The building has walls of local shelly limestone and thick timbers supporting a stone-tiled roof. It is designated a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Monument. Its fourteen-foot doors were replaced in 2011 by local craftsmen using traditional techniques and a design based on the Bishop’s Eye in Wells.

Church of St John the Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is one of Glastonbury’s notable landmarks and one of the most ambitious parish churches in Somerset. The present building dates from the fifteenth century and is designated a Grade I listed building.

Its size and architectural importance make it an essential stop for anyone exploring Glastonbury’s religious heritage. It is also included in Neywo’s walking route through the town.

St Benedict’s Church

St Benedict’s Church began as a Norman chapel in the eleventh century. Substantial additions in the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries mean that the building reflects several stages of the town’s architectural history.

This Anglican church is recognised as a Grade I listed building and offers another perspective on Glastonbury’s long religious tradition.

Church of Our Lady St Mary of Glastonbury

The Church of Our Lady St Mary of Glastonbury is a Roman Catholic church and diocesan shrine. Completed in 1940, it serves as a parish church and contains the Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Glastonbury.

Its role as both a local church and a destination of devotion adds to the range of religious traditions represented in the town.

St Andrew’s Church, Edgarley

St Andrew’s Church in Edgarley was built in 1897 as a Church of England mission church. It is now used as a private chapel by Millfield Preparatory School.

The building’s present role reflects a change in the local community while preserving its function as a place of worship. It completes a varied group of churches around Glastonbury, from the Norman origins of St Benedict’s to the twentieth-century Church of Our Lady St Mary.

Explore Glastonbury with Neywo

A Glastonbury self-guided walking tour makes it easy to connect the town’s main historic sites. Neywo’s walking tour, “Glastonbury: Abbey, Arthur and the Tor,” covers 3.74 km in about 94 minutes, with 7 narrated stops. It includes St Benedict’s Church, the Church of Our Lady St Mary of Glastonbury, the Church of St John the Baptist, Glastonbury Abbey, the Somerset Rural Life Museum, St Michael’s Tower and St Andrew’s Church in Edgarley.

Download Neywo and explore at your own pace. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, with no group and no schedule. Discover more destinations in England and the wider United Kingdom with the same audio-guide format.