Chalice Well

The Chalice Well runs at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, its waters coloured a deep rust-red by the iron-rich limestone through which they flow. It has been flowing at a consistent rate — approximately 25,000 litres a day — for as long as records exist, and almost certainly for thousands of years before that. In the driest English summers, when neighbouring springs fail, the Chalice Well continues.

The tradition that Joseph of Arimathea brought the cup of the Last Supper to Glastonbury, and concealed it in or near this spring, is a medieval accretion to what is clearly a much older sacred site. The well's iron-stained stones suggest continuous use as a ritual site long before Christianity arrived in Somerset. The water's colour — the colour of old blood — and its unfailing nature gave it obvious sacred significance to pre-Christian inhabitants.

The site is now managed as a contemplative garden, and draws pilgrims of many traditions. The two interlocking circles of the Chalice Well symbol — known as the Vesica Piscis — appear in the iron cover made for the well in 1919 by Frederick Bligh Bond, and have become one of the most recognised spiritual symbols associated with Glastonbury. Whether the Grail lies within or not, the spring runs on.