Glastonbury Thorn - History

History

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. Early writers do not connect Joseph to the arrival of Christianity in Britain, and the first literary source to place him in Britain appeared in the ninth century. The historicity of Joseph's presence in Glastonbury remains controversial, but the thorn is first mentioned in an early sixteenth-century metrical Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathea. The anonymous author notes that the thorn was unusual in that it flowered twice in a year, once as normal on "old wood" in spring, and once on "new wood" (the current season's matured new growth) in the winter. This flowering of the Glastonbury Thorn in mild weather just past midwinter was accounted miraculous.

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.

Gentleman's Magazine January 1753

The original Glastonbury Thorn itself was cut down and burned as a relic of superstition by Cromwellian troops (or 'Roundheads' by another source) during the English Civil War.