Professor Aubrey Manning explores the hillside of Glastonbury Tor in this BBC documentary from 2009
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- Опубликовано: 16 окт 2024
- The Terraces of Avalon
Landscape Mysteries
Episode 8 of 8
One of the mysteries surrounding Glastonbury has been the origin of a series of stepped terraces on the Tor. They may have been part of a Neolithic maze, or possibly fortifications built by King Arthur on his Isle of Avalon.
Professor Aubrey Manning explores whether there is a connection between the terraces and the myths and legends which permeate this area. A new geophysical survey of the Tor helps Aubrey assess the evidence as he looks for clues in the history of the surrounding countryside. But it is the once-prosperous abbey at the base of the Tor which points Aubrey towards a link he hadn't suspected between the terraces and the Glastonbury myths.
I visited Glastonbury in December of 1986 as part of a spiritual pilgrimage that led to a week in Assisi over Christmas week. My time in Glastonbury was magical, especially the time I spent on the Tor. This documentary is amazing. BBC does these better than anyone. Thank you for sharing this Roly.
Thanks for your appreciation
I also visited Glastonbury in 1986. It was late spring and the weather was beautiful. Being on the top of the Tor was a pretty incredible experience for a boy from Illinois, where the whole state is almost as flat as a pancake. That day, the RAF were conducting air exercises and the jets flew around us up there. It was the most exhilarating experience! I will never forget it. ✈️
Sounds fantastic!
Sounds fantastic!@@JayGideon-7
UK 🇬🇧 I've seen plenty of hills with terraces. I've heard that they are just a natural phenomena. Which I agree with.
I live quite locally,so have been many times. Although I won't go any more. Far too many people at all hours of the day and night &they're not nice visitors either. Leaving their cars wherever they want, even in disabled bays &private residential. Please be considerate when you visit tiny, rural places.🕊️But my favourite visit was a winter morning some years ago & there were only a couple of other people, but I counted eleven rainbows around me on all sides. Several of them were double rainbows. It was really beautiful, rainbows in every direction ❤️
Sorry to hear about the inconsiderate visitors. I'm glad to hear about the rainbows though 😺
@@Lost_Histories As you can only see a single rainbow at once directly opposite the sun as the light is reflected and refracted in water droplets, this must have been quite a mysterious experience. If such supernatural effects were to be observed, Glastonbury would have to be the place. I hadn't been for some years but visited this summer, it was very crowded as most tourist spots are these days (it's no good moaning if you're a visitor yourself) . Still very impressive and enjoyable.
When I lived in Glastonbury I took many photos of the Tor during the Winter with snow on the ground,it put a totally different view of the place than you normally see.
I enjoy visiting the Tor also in the change of the seasons
The Tor, being one of the peaks I regularly climbed over the decades it is interesting to hear an account of the bumps on the way up as you look out across the surrounding moors.
'Moors' being the name of the surrounding land as you will discover if you look at a map!
Thanks for your insights
@@pcka12 it’s called The Levels,was a salt marsh and inland sea until it was all drained by the Monks or Farmers that rented the surrounding lands.That’s why until Henry the 8th it was very rich.When Henry destroyed the church and it’s power was transferred to Wells Cathedral.
@@harrydebastardeharris987 'the Levels' is a new term for the Somerset Moors (like Godney Moor, Sedgemoor, & so on) coined after the Huntspill Level was driven both to aid drainage & provide the capacious amounts of water required by the WW2 RDX plant established over the hill from it).
PS local knowledge had it that the Dutch were instrumental in much of the drainage & the dividing waterways are known as Rhines, not ditches!
I adore Aubrey Manning. The Beeb wouldn’t allow him on nowadays.
The Beeb should cease to exist.
From the air the features and pattern overlay presented reminds me of I'itoi, the man in the maze of Southern Arizona's Tohono O'Odham people. Glastonbury and the entirety of Salisbury Plain has always fascinated me.
Me too, I don't get out much to Glastonbury, but when I'm there, I bring the drone out and see the incredible surrounding landscape
Sounds fantastic!
Glastonbury abbey was probably the wealthiest religious institution in England, its income even exceeded that of the king, Henry VIII actually watched while it was being pulled down. He had the last abbot Richard Whiting hung, drawn and quartered on Glastonbury Tor.
Henry was noted for his grudges. The outcomes were never bloodless.
When I first saw those terraces I was reminded strongly if terraced ricefields in Indonesia. Makes sense to me.
I agree, looks like an medieval type of farming system used on the Tor
I visited Glastonbury Tor on a Mid Summer Night as the Mist decended on the countryside..An Eerie Night that was ...
Conceivably, the terraces may have started as a defensive structure like the Iron Age British Camp en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Camp but then converted to agriculture by the Mediaeval monks whose work obliterated the previous archaeology.
I agree, definitely medieval and the monks used terrace farming techniques
Reminds me of a step pyramid that's been covered over and made into terraces
War is not the only or most important human activity over prehistory or history. Therefore the terraces are more likely agricultural than defensive.
Before we cut down the forests and drained the Marsh lands we farmed on the hills..
What amazing Hydrologists the Cistercians were, even their name suggests they were Masters of Water Management.
I wonder if the monks were also responsible for removing the forest that covered the Tor in Neolithic times. 🤔
Me and my mate ,,had a spliff in that Tor 😂, watched the sun rise ⚡
Yup, tourist trap or not, (and it always has been going right back to medieval times,) it's still a great place to watch the sun come up.
Bronze age men terraced hills to drive the flocks of sheep up in times of possible threat of attack and in winter flooding, we have same in Kent, at Folkestone on sugar hill
OMG, Amazing !
Thanks for watching the documentary
This is when the BBC made excellent documentaries that weren’t swamped by the radical theories of racial, gender and sexual identity politics. The ones that dominate MSM these days.
Sad but true
EXACTLY! It's just so wearing to have an agenda shoved down your throat in every single programme.
0:13
Absolutely. 'Professor' Brian Cox & his transgender Black Holes, David Attenborough & his Woke Wallabies. Nowadays, I stick mostly to those butter-voiced Bill Nighy Channel 5 travelogues where you can win a free cruise with £1000 spending money by calling a premium rate phone number.
The wetlands were probably safer than most other places
What’s under the hill?
@@owlspiritreiki I would say a Dragon
There was a cave now its a reservoir victorians did tours in the cave
I'm sure that spiral around Tor was created as water subsided.
Pyramid ❤
Pyramid
Why didn't you just tell us at the beginning and save everybody a lot of trouble?
Because it was very interesting to go through the research process with Professor Manning, learning how one discovers the true story of a landscape.
@@charlotteillustration5778 Oh. 🙃
You're RUclips Spam, burger off!
I've a picture of Glastonbury Tor completely tree covered. Felled and hauled by snows of bath I think 🤔
At the 3 minute mark, I've surmised that they're terraced battlements to guard a pre Roman era fort. Could I be wrong?
Aubrey Manning is a GOAT
Need to be a goat to climb that tor