Glastonbury’s ‘Crystal shops’, Part 3

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alternative lifestyle, crystals, Curtain Pole, Glastonbury, Glastonbury High Street, organic food

Next door to the Heavenly Path Art Galleryis a totally conventional shop, The Curtain Pole, selling and making curtains, blinds and soft furnishings. I especially wanted to do this series of blogs now, because this shop always does wonderful windows at Christmas. Here are those of 2015, rather obscured by condensation and reflections, and later, with young visitors.Nearly at the top of the High Street are Arcanacadabra,Kashi, and somewhere that somehow I have failed to visit so far!Wandering back down the High Street again, I pick up our large organic, etc, store,then ‘get real’ and a shop which totally epitomises Glastonbury, simply called Crystals. I believe that Gothic Image, yet another bookshop, is one of the oldest alternative shops in Glastonbury. Certainly they have been running ‘tours to ancient and sacred sites since 1980’.  You can learn more about many of these places from their websites. I think this is wonderful!Back in the Market Place, I pass Happy Glastonbury, and, nearly back to my garage in Benedict Street, I realise that I hadn’t caught the tattoo ‘studio’ on my way out.  Even though it’s actually double this width.Never a dull moment in Glastonbury!

Glastonbury’s ‘Crystal shops’, Part 2

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Athelney, bookshop, Burns the Bread, Glastonbury, Glastonbury High Street, King Alfred, Meditation

Continuing our discovery of Glastonbury’s alternative lifestyle shops, a little further up is Moon Mirrors, and The Mystic Garden. On either side of the High Street are several alleys, reflecting the mediaeval layout of the town centre.  Some of these have totally disappeared, but some of them are still delightful to explore.  The Gauntlet is a very recent exploitation of the original layout, in that the developer not only beautifully restored buildings on either side of the alley, creating shops and accommodation, but extended it further with more housing.  Come and visit these byways yourself… Continuing up the High Street, we come to Yinyang. Glastonbury High street does have a few conventional shops, such as this flower shop, the name of which nevertheless has an Avalonian influence,and the wonderful Burns the Bread, award winning baker. It’s very difficult to pass without just popping in for a pastry. I joined a behind-the-scenes tour of the bakery with the Glastonbury Conservation Society a year or so back.  It was Bob Burns himself who guided us.  What a wonderful name, enabling a good old-fashioned English pun for the name of the shop! (It was only a few miles from here, at Athelney, that King Alfred – if he did – burnt the cakes.)Then we come to a shop focused on Africa, followed by The Goddess and the Green Man,a shop selling imported Indian goods, dilliway and dilliway, and Lilith. Here’s another bookshopand Covenstead’s Curious Cottage, opened recently, in the place of a failed newspaper shop.  (Two years ago we had three of these, now we have just one.) Perhaps you seek Enlightenment? Are you a Natural Earthling? Or perhaps you’d like to try Soul Therapy Meditation.(To be concluded tomorrow.)

Glastonbury’s ‘Crystal shops’, Part 1

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alternative lifestyle, crystal shops, Glastonbury, Glastonbury High Street, hippies, Rapson's

‘The crystal shops’ is the ever-so-slightly contemptuous name given by the more traditionally-minded people living here in Glastonbury to those outlets which promote a more alternative style.  We have dozens of them, and I can only imagine that they must make their living on tourists and web commerce.  Nearly all the goods they sell, other than clothes (the sort I used to wear in the hippie seventies), are of the ‘gift’ variety.

The other day, I had to take my car to the garage early.  I could have walked home then back again two hours later, but instead, as it was a bright, crisp day, I took my camera and wandered around town taking photos of most of these shops, and of a few others.  On the outward journey, most of them were still firmly shut, many with windows obscured by condensation.  By the time I wandered back, and having had a coffee in Caffe Zero, most were open, and most windows were clearer.

I started in Benedict Street, walking up from Rapson’s garage (family firm, great personal service).  The first interesting shop I came to was The Magpies’ Nest.  They get apostrophes!  (My photos amalgamate outward and return strolls.) We are fortunate in having a music shop, and extra fortunate that it has not lost its old shutters, which were open by the time I got back. Next came – you can just make it out – Bedlam.Up in the Market Place is Man, Myth and Magik, and next door is a toy shop, Little Imps.  I was passing a while ago when the owner came out, so I took the opportunity of asking her how much the fantasy castle, which is always in the window, would cost. She said she could get one made for, as I recall, £4000. I have had to limit myself in sharing with you Elestial’s windows, packed with delicate shades of turquoise, mauve and purple. Also in the Market Place is the Cat and Cauldron. Because it was a bright day, you can see more reflections than window contents in the second picture. I couldn’t tell you whether Hemp in Avalon (only in Glastonbury!) actually sells cannabis, (one has to presume not, but…). I’ve just visited their website, and they certainly advocate its use!  I’ve never seen the shop without it’s grill.Further along, in Northload Street, The Crystal Man was shut on both occasions that I passed it.  Its lovely window is not obscured when the shop is open.Back to the Market Place, and starting up the High Street, past the Glastonbury Experience, you come to Courtyard Books, and, on the other side of the Street, another bookshop, The Speaking Tree. Dicketts is a small stationer’s, bookshop and seller of art supplies. Its wares reflect the town it is in. Parts 2 and 3 will complete our tour.

Avebury Manor

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Adam Williamson, Avebury Circle, Avebury Manor, BBC, National Trust, Richard Holford, Sir Alexander Keiller, Wiltshire

A few years ago, the BBC and the National Trust collaborated on a project to do up Avebury Manor, in Wiltshire, in an innovative way.  I avoid the word ‘restore’, as each room was done up, using modern copies and decoration, as a kind of stage set, to illustrate how the room might have looked at a certain period of the Manor’s history.  Right now, staff and volunteers have further embellished each room to show how it might have looked at Christmas.  I visited last week with a friend. Here are some photos I took, reflecting not historical order, but our tour, which started with how a Tudor dining room might have looked at Christmas in the mid 16th century. Next was a dining room as it might have been in 1798, when the then owner, Sir  Adam Williamson, former Governor of Jamaica had a fatal fall in that very room, possibly as the result of a stroke. We visited the post World War I billiard room, but I was unable to get a decent picture, other than this one, for too much brilliant sunlight and the presence of too many visitors.

The 1912 kitchen occasionally reminded us of items we had known in our own 20th-century childhoods.

We were pleased to be offered in the room next door, which had been the servants’ hall, minced pies and mulled apple juice.

It was the millionaire archeologist Sir Alexander Keiller, of the marmalade family, who bought Avebury Manor in the 20th century, in order to work on excavating and re-erecting the standing stones.  (His widow gifted the estate to the National Trust in 1966.) Here is his parlour as it may have looked in the 1930s.

Next we saw a late Tudor bedroom, sadly with a sumptuous bedcover removed and a rather boring ‘Christmassy’ one in its place.  Still, it was good to see the handmade felt decorations on the Christmas tree, though on reflection wasn’t it the Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert who introduced that traditional Christmas symbol to the country? Queen Anne may or may not have dined at Avebury Manor, and may or may not have slept there in 1702.  But Richard Holford, the owner at the time, may well have  prepared for the eventuality, and here is a stage set version (as the guide insisted) of how it might have been done.No explanation was given of these festive delights: Most of the garden was closed, but we were able to see a little of it and look back at the house,

before walking alongside the wall past the church to the outbuildings, including the cafeteria where we lunched, after visiting the archeological museum.  Then, as it was a chilly day, whether or not the sun was out, we limited our visit to the Avebury Stone Circle to a few minutes, before making our way home.