Classic VCH account of the famous town of Glastonbury and its
environs. The ancient religious settlement of Glastonbury, with its
many legendary associations stretching back into the Dark Ages, and
the manufacturing town of Street, the creation of the late 19th
century, are curious neighbours. They lie at the centre of the
mysteriously-named Twelve Hides Hundred, the core estate of
Glastonbury Abbey in the early Middle Ages. Around them, spreading
into the low-lying moors of the Somerset Levels, are parishes which
produced forthe abbey, after continuous improvement of drainage,
most of its economic riches - meat, milk, cheese, fruit, wool,
wine, cider, fish, stone, timber, and fuel. The suppression of
Glastonbury under unusually tragic circumstances ended the
dominance of a single lord and a coordinated economic system, and
the eventual inclosure and drainage of the moors took two more
centuries to achieve. Glastonbury, meanwhile, faced a century and
more of depression but in the 18th received a charter of
incorporation and became a centre of the stocking industry; while
the fortunes of Street also rose, both through the shoe industry
but also of the role of the Clark family in education and social
improvement. ROBERT DUNNING is County Editor, Victoria County
History of Somerset.
General
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