England 2025, Day 8

This ended up being the most religious of my days so far. I hit up two major religious sites. First are the Bishop’s Palace and Wells Cathedral. Second is the ruin of Glastonbury Abbey.

The city of Wells is named for the springs within the boundaries of the Bishop’s Palace. These springs have provided ample clean water to the area for millennia. Nowadays, the springs add another level to the gardens around the palace.

Parts of the palace are in good repair and other parts not so much. They have essentially used the ruins to add to the gardens.

I also managed to arrive on market day so, bonus!

The market is right next to the entrance to the palace.

Undercroft but built at ground level due to the high water table.

I loved the wallpaper but when I tried to take a picture of only the wallpaper it came out almost black and white. Very strange.

Henry VIII outfit from a British mini-series.

The “wood carvings” are actually paper mache to keep costs down.

And into the Cathedral. The Cathedral is fairly plain with very little stained glass. Most of the glass was destroyed during the English Civil War. I suspect the same happened to a lot of the statuary. There has been some sort of religious building here since at least Roman times.

The inverted arch was used to stop the tower from collapsing. By the time they got this high some stones were beginning to crack.

The oldest medieval street still used for its original purpose. Built in the 1300’s and still here!

After a very disappointing lunch I headed to my second stop, Glastonbury Abbey.

On the whole it was a bit disappointing as most of the abbey was torn down by Henry VIII after he took over the church. Unless you are a massive fan of the Arthurian legends I do not recommend a stop here. The street leading to the abbey smells strongly of incense from the many New Age stores along the road.