What is the oldest tree in Glastonbury?
The oldest tree in Glastonbury is the Glastonbury Thorn, a hawthorn in the churchyard of St John the Baptist on the High Street. It was planted in the 1930s by George Chislett, then head gardener of Glastonbury Abbey, which makes it about ninety years old. It flowers twice a year, and every December a flowering sprig is cut by pupils of St John's Infants School and sent to the reigning monarch, a tradition kept since 1929. It is free to visit, standing in the churchyard, open in daylight hours.
This is the tree that lasted, not the first one. Tradition says the whole Glastonbury Thorn lineage descends from a staff planted by Joseph of Arimathea, a story first written down in 1520, and a Parliamentary soldier is said to have cut down the original around 1647. Every specimen since has been grafted, because the twice-flowering trait does not survive from seed. Glastonbury has lost two others: the tree on Wearyall Hill was vandalised in 2010, its replacement sapling snapped in 2012, and the whole tree was removed by the landowner in 2019; the specimen inside Glastonbury Abbey died in 1991 and was felled the following year. This one, grafted by Abbey head gardener George Chislett in the 1930s, is what remains. It has not had an easy run either: a 2018 report called it decrepit and heavily infested with mistletoe, though a December 2024 visit found it much healthier and flowering well. The coordinates given are the church's rather than a tree-level pin, so the location is marked approximate until someone has stood in the churchyard and confirmed exactly where in it the tree grows.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.