Avalon Marshes Center to Glastonbury
Avalon Marshes Center to Glastonbury town center via Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve and RSPB Ham Wall
Avalon Marshes Centre pond
Description
The Avalon Marshes, Somerset
The Avalon Marshes project has conserved the landscape, heritage and wildlife of this unique wetland area in the heart of Somerset. To help secure a healthy future for this special place, we need you vote in the 2017 National Lottery Awards.
Avalon Marshes Open Day
Some of the activities at Avalon Marshes open Day 2016, with volunteers from South West Heritage Trust dressed in period costumes in and around the historic building reconstructions. When completed the Anglo Saxon Long Hall and the British-Romano buildings will be open to the public. Details of this will be posted on the Avalon Marshes and SW Heritage Trust websites nearer the time.
Sights & Sounds of the Prehistoric Marshes
Year 5 at Westover Green Primary School visited the Avalon Marshes in December 2014 to make a film with filmmaker James Price. They learnt about the Stone-Age Sweet Track and the Iron-Age Glastonbury Lake Village, with help from the AMLP team and staff and volunteers from the South West Heritage Trust and Natural England, and made this film about what they learnt. This project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund as part of the Avalon Marshes Landscape Partnership scheme, and was delivered by Somerset Film.
Places to see in ( Glastonbury - UK )
Places to see in ( Glastonbury - UK )
Glastonbury is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, 23 miles south of Bristol. The town of Glastonbury is in the Mendip district. Glastonbury is less than 1 mile (2 km) across the River Brue from Street, which is now larger than Glastonbury.
Evidence from timber trackways such as the Sweet Track show that the town has been inhabited since Neolithic times. Glastonbury Lake Village was an Iron Age village, close to the old course of the River Brue and Sharpham Park approximately 2 miles (3 km) west of Glastonbury, that dates back to the Bronze Age. Centwine was the first Saxon patron of Glastonbury Abbey, which dominated the town for the next 700 years. One of the most important abbeys in England, it was the site of Edmund Ironside's coronation as King of England in 1016. Many of the oldest surviving buildings in the town, including the Tribunal, George Hotel and Pilgrims' Inn and the Somerset Rural Life Museum, which is based in an old tithe barn, are associated with the abbey. The Church of St John the Baptist dates from the 15th century.
The town became a centre for commerce, which led to the construction of the market cross, Glastonbury Canal and the Glastonbury and Street railway station, the largest station on the original Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The Brue Valley Living Landscape is a conservation project managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust and nearby is the Ham Wall National Nature Reserve.
Glastonbury has been described as a New Age community which attracts people with New Age and Neopagan beliefs, and is notable for myths and legends often related to Glastonbury Tor, concerning Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and King Arthur. Joseph is said to have arrived in Glastonbury and stuck his staff into the ground, when it flowered miraculously into the Glastonbury Thorn. The presence of a landscape zodiac around the town has been suggested but no evidence has been discovered. The Glastonbury Festival, held in the nearby village of Pilton, takes its name from the town.
The Tribunal was a medieval merchant's house, used as the Abbey courthouse and, during the Monmouth Rebellion trials, by Judge Jeffreys. The octagonal Market Cross was built in 1846 by Benjamin Ferrey. The George Hotel and Pilgrims' Inn was built in the late 15th century to accommodate visitors to Glastonbury Abbey.
The Somerset Rural Life Museum is a museum of the social and agricultural history of Somerset, housed in buildings surrounding a 14th-century barn once belonging to Glastonbury Abbey. The Chalice Well is a holy well at the foot of the Tor, covered by a wooden well-cover with wrought-iron decoration made in 1919.
Just a short distance from the Chalice Well site, across a road known as Well House Lane, can be found the White Spring, where a temple has been created in the 21st century. The building now used as the White Spring Temple was originally a Victorian-built well house, erected by the local water board in 1872.
The Glastonbury Canal ran just over 14 miles (23 km) through two locks from Glastonbury to Highbridge where it entered the Bristol Channel in the early 19th century. The nearest railway station is at Castle Cary but there is no direct bus route linking it to Glastonbury. There are convenient bus connections between Glastonbury and the railway stations at Bristol Temple Meads (over an hour travelling time) and at Taunton. The main road in the town is the A39 which passes through Glastonbury from Wells connecting the town with Street and the M5 motorway.
( Glastonbury - UK ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting the city of Glastonbury . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Glastonbury - UK
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Celts and Romans battle it out at the Avalon Marshes centre
On Saturday 11th June the reproduction buildings at the Avalon Marshes Centre were invaded by MAYA Somerset. The young archaeologists spent the morning making pots and casting some pewter. In the afternoon they split into factions and fought small battles as Celts and Romans - here's one of the epic battles.
Somerset Village (1957)
Various villages in Somerset.
L/S of a country scene with hills in the background and thatched cottages amongst the trees. This is the village of Selworthy. M/S of a bush full of pink flowers on the wall of a house. L/S of green fields and trees, there is a gate in the foreground a man walks up and leans on it.
L/S two rows of sheaf's of willow in a field, a man walks between them, he is Cuthbert Hembrow. Some geese are running about as well. M/S of Cuthbert gathering up a sheaf of willow, C/U of his hands separating some strands of willow out into a bundle, he puts them over his shoulder and carries them off. He takes them over to where a woman and two men are working. C/U of him carrying the willow past the camera, the people are in the background. They are surrounded by various wicker items such as baskets and chairs. Cuthbert carries the sheaf over to them. L/S of 27 year old Joyce Richards weaving a dog's basket, Wally Hillard it sat down weaving another basket and Fred Sellick is working on a 'hood chair'. Cuthbert lays the sheaf down next to Wally. M/S of Joyce sat on the grass weaving the long strands of willow into the basket there are cows in a field behind her. C/U of her hands weaving the basket, there is a flat iron in it. C/U of her smiling face and C/U of her hands weaving the strands. M/S of Wally sat on the ground working, C/U of his face as he does it and C/U of his hands weaving the strands between long vertical poles. M/S of Fred finishing the hood chair, the camera moves down over it to a basket on the floor, their firm is called Hembrow & Sellick and operates from the village of Burrowbridge.
M/S of a man climbing up a thatched roof in the village of Bishops Lydeard, he is 68 year old James May. He reaches the top of the ladder and sticks a hook into the thatch. M/S of James on top of the house, the roofs and treetops are visible in the background. He puts a bundle of sticks down and takes a piece of wood out of the thatch.
C/U of him taking the hook out and using it to pin a piece of thatch to the roof. He knocks it in with a big flat mallet, he takes another hook out and puts it in. C/U of James's face as he is working. L/S of his legs and the street with a couple of people on it far below. L/S of the thatched roof with James working near the top.
L/S of a woman riding along a country road on a bicycle, there are fields and trees in the background and a river with two swans and a signet on it in the foreground. M/S of a village street with cottages on it, there are several young women riding down it on bicycles, more women walk down behind them. The camera follows the bicycles as they ride up to a long flat building, other women are walking up to the entrance. The narrator tells us this is a shirt factory at Bishops Lydeard (Van Heusen's) and it provides employment for the young people of the town. L/S of the girls parking their bicycles in the sheds. L/S of women walking up to the entrance of the factory. Interior. M/S of 28 year old Christine Hughes working at a sewing machine, she has a pile of shirt collars beside her and is sewing one on the machine, there is an open window behind her.
L/S of a big house in front of a tree covered hill, there is a small bridge in the foreground. This is the village of Allerford. A man with a walking stick walks over the bridge.
FILM ID:65.02
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Birds at Ham Wall Nature Reserve, Somerset - Spring 2019
A day out birding at the RSPB's Ham Wall Nature Reserve, near Glastonbury in Somerset. This video features many of the birds I saw including Marsh Harriers, Black-tailed Godwit, Common Sandpiper, Great White Egrets and Lapwings.
As you would expect in spring, birds were singing loudly, performing courtship displays and building nests. The video opens with the sound of a Bittern booming and elsewhere you can hear the songs of Cuckoos, Reed Warblers and Wrens, among many others.
In some shots you can see a hill with a tower on the top. This is Glastonbury Tor, topped by St Michael's Tower which is all that's left of the 14th-century church of St Michael.
Somerset Crafts Open day
Somerset Crafts opening day, September 2010 at the Natural England Avalon Marshes Nature Reserve, special guest Michael Eavis
Meare Heath: The Movie
Meare Heath is a nature reserve on the Somerset Levels, UK.
British Heart Foundation Glastonbury Bike Ride, Sunday 13th September
British Heart Foundation Glastonbury Bike Ride, Sunday September 13th 2015
Spectacular Somerset Starling Murmurations
These starling murmurations were filmed recently by Val & Al (avalonprints.uk.com) at RSPB Ham Wall nature reserve. The starlings migrate from Eastern Europe and join us here on the Somerset Levels during late Autumn, with their numbers gradually building through November and December. Ultimate numbers of birds vary year by year, this year (2016-17) we estimate there are some 2 million starlings roosting here. Normally the birds change their chosen roost site every few weeks, sometimes sleeping in the reed beds at Natural England’s Shapwick Heath reserve or as now, at Ham Wall. For some reason this year birds have behaved differently and have so far remained at Ham Wall. The Starlings will leave us in mid March to return home to breed, so you still have plenty of time to see them before then. Evenings offer the best opportunities for viewing the birds but the dawn “explosion” as the birds go off in different directions to feed is also very dramatic. The birds meet at their roost site around sunset, so if you are planning a visit you should try to be at your chosen viewing position at least 20 minutes before then, as the starlings will arrive early if the evening is dull. The RSPB starling hotline will tell you the latest known roosting location. If you are in the area, at the western end of Shapwick Heath is Somerset Crafts, an art and crafts gallery on the Avalon Marshes Centre. The gallery displays and sells original arts and crafts from over twenty very talented members, with much of their work inspired by nature and the local area – including the starling murmurations.
Chakra Pool Chalice Well Glastonbury
Glastonbury - The Heart Chakra of the World
Glastonbury is a gateway to the Unseen. It has been a holy place and pilgrim-way from time immemorial, and to this day it sends its ancient call into the heart of the race it guards, and still we answer to the inner voice. -Dion Fortune, Avalon of the Heart
It is said that the Labyrinth of the Tor is natural and only accentuated by the human hand over the millennia to assist in marking certain astronomical events. This natural spiral phenomena instinctively feels right here when meditating on the fact that that once the whole area was covered by the sea and a mass of Ammonites lived here, who, over the millennia, left thousands of fossilized remains deep in the ground - all releasing the spiral of life energy vortex they naturally contained.
Judy Hall's Vision:
At one time, Glastonbury stood tall above encircling marshes, in a shining sea. The Tor, healing well, sacred tree, and Abbey ruins are today enfolded. Within a landscape zodiac that may have been trodden by Christ himself. Tradition says he came here three times as a child.
In the pagan view of the world, Avalon was where the dead went to the Otherworld. Glastonbury is an interconnection of sacred sites from different traditions that creates one numinous whole. The spiral of an Ammonite mirrors the labyrinth that winds its way up the Tor.
This unseen spiral energy of life can be sensed when you enter into the realms of Avalon. To walk the Labyrinth to the top of the Tor is to take a pilgrimage in homage to this circulating, life giving force.
Just like the spiralling energy within our hearts.
Glastonbury truly is the Heart Chakra of the Mother Earth.
Love & Light,
Gaia, Elaine, Maddy & Sam. x
Cafe Stops - Sweet's Tea Rooms - Wedmore, Glastonbury, Somerset
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Glastonbury Frost Fayre 2012
Sunny start to the day but it greyed over by mid afternoon with occasional rain.
Despite the weather lots of people came and there was a party atmosphere helped enormously by a band called Calico Jack, one half of which did an awesome gig in the High St, turning a dull grey December afternoon into pure gold, Alchemy in action.
I've included a short clip of one of their songs and will upload all 3 songs I recorded later.
apart from that I'm wondering around taking in the sights, dodging the rain and generally catching only a fraction of what was going on.
It was a great to see the town come to life and fill with people instead of traffic.
WetlandLIFE: Learning to Love the Mosquito
WetlandLIFE participant, Vicki Steward, of 'Normal for Glastonbury', tells us how she learnt to love (or at least not dislike!) the mosquito in wetlands in Somerset. This clip forms part of our research on perceptions towards wetlands and mosquitoes in England.
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WetlandLIFE is a Valuing Nature project exploring health & wellbeing in English wetlands. We are using an approach called Community Voice Method to explore experiences and opinions about wetlands in Somerset, Bedford and the Humber. As well as providing rich qualitative data to help us understand people's relationship with wetlands, we are producing three short documentaries from the interviews. This is a clip from one of those interviews.
Please visit wetlandLIFE.org for more information about our project.
Glastonbury Lake Village
The film documents a small research excavation carried out at Glastonbury Lake Village in 2014. The site is the best-preserved prehistoric settlement ever discovered in the UK. Waterlogged peat ensured the incredible preservation of Iron Age wooden structures. Filmmaker Justin Owen
Glastonbury high street 26/8/17