Glastonbury Thorn

According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury with the Holy Grail and thrust his staff into Wearyall Hill, which then grew into the original thorn tree.

In this account, the miraculous winter-flowering Thorn is paired with an equally remarkable walnut tree that grew in the Abbey grounds and was said to flower on Midsummer's Day.

The abbey was dissolved in 1539 and substantially demolished during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the Thorn continued to flower at Christmas and many Catholics saw this as "a Testimony to Religion, that it might flourish in persecution".

It features in Wenceslaus Hollar's celebrated engraving of Glastonbury, commissioned for Sir William Dugdale's controversial survey of England's ruined monasteries, Monasticon Anglicanum, published in 1655.

According to this, Joseph of Arimathea arrived on Wearyall Hill with his followers on Christmas Day; 'we are weary all', he announced, and planted his staff in the ground, which thereupon burst into flower.

This story draws on a fairly common biblical theme in which saintly staves miraculously burst into flower as a sign of divine favour.

[7] At the time of the adoption of the revised Gregorian calendar in Britain in 1752, the Gentleman's Magazine reported that curious visitors went to see whether the Glastonbury thorn kept to the Julian calendar or the new one: Glastonbury.—A vast concourse of people attended the noted thorn on Christmas-day, new style; but, to their great disappointment, there was no appearance of its blowing, which made them watch it narrowly the 5th of January, the Christmas-day, old style, when it blowed as usual.

Renewed interest in Christmas, coupled with a greater sense of moral responsibility, part of the romantic backlash against the perceived soul-lessness of industrialism and urbanisation.

[9][10] The Glastonbury thorn was once again attacked and its branches cut off, in this case the 1951 specimen that was growing on Wearyall Hill on the southwestern side of the town, on 9 December 2010.

[13] On 1 April 2012 a sapling grafted from a descendant of the pre-1951 specimen was planted by the landowners working with Glastonbury Conservation Society and consecrated, but it was snapped in half and irreparably damaged 16 days later.

[14] Many have tried to grow the Glastonbury thorn from seed and direct cuttings, but in the later part of the 20th century all attempts reverted to the normal hawthorn type, flowering only in spring.

They sing carols, including one specially written for the occasion, and the oldest pupil has the privilege of cutting the branch of the Glastonbury thorn that is then taken to London and presented to His Majesty The King.