(S)n fnitistj Cnttle iklkm. 



BY TIIK REV. r. WARRE. 



A T tlie time Avhen the aboriginal tribes of the Loegri 

 l\ inhabited the County of Somerset, probably long 

 before the men of Galedin had repaid their hospitality by 

 depriving them of a large portion of their riebest territory, 

 certainly long before the Roman eagle had extended bis flight 

 to these western Islands or Christianity had settled among 

 US, the Isle of Avalon, in later days celebrated through the 

 World as the site of the earliest Christian church established 

 in Britain, as the burial-place of the renowned Arthur, and 

 through the middle ages as possessing one of the most 

 splendid monastic establishments that the world has seen, 

 must have been a peninsula, rather than an island. Sur- 

 rounded on both sides by what was then an impassable 

 morass, or rather a lagoon. Overflowed by the sea at every 

 high tide, it was connected on the east side by an isthmus 

 of but slight elevation above the surrounding moor with 

 the higher ground which, beginning at West Pennard, 

 extends in an easterly direction towards Bruton, 



Now we know with historical certainty that Glastonbury 

 was inhabited in very early days, that in the days of the 

 Romano-Britons it had a monastic cstablishment which 



