Tor began his talk with Joseph of Arimathea’s arrival in Glastonbury, and the construction of the round wattle and daub chapel that was England’s first church. Tor started his spiel, I noticed he doesn’t use notes, just his stick to point out relevant features on the landscape, and a copy of Palden Jenkins’ Glastonbury Ley Line Map to show how everything joins up. When we got to the remains of the Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill’s summit we encountered a Pilgrim Traffic Jam – a group of Spaniards doing Qi Gong. He reckons he guides about 170 people a year, visiting Glastonbury, Tintagel, Stonehenge, Avebury and other sacred sites in the South West. He prefers groups of 8, as that’s how many his minibus accommodates, and much larger groups tend to lose focus. He’s been leading tours for five years, having started out casually taking friends and family around the sites of Glastonbury, and now he leads parties of between 1 and 40 people. There’s something solid and reassuring about Tor, he’s only just turned 40 but his tweeds, beard, walking boots and wiggly walking stick give him the air of a retired University lecturer. Tor is such a great Glastonbury character that I knew there would be material for the blog, and besides, he’d promised me a free lunch.

I was accompanying a lady from San Francisco who was on Tor’s week long guided tour.

Tor Webster had invited me along to check out ‘Tor’s Tour of the Tor’. November the 1st, a cold snap in the air and the mists of Avalon lay thickly around as we climbed Wearyall Hill to the remains of the Holy Thorn.

Glastonbury tor uk