Church of St John the Baptist, Glastonbury

The Church of St John the Baptist in Glastonbury, Somerset — described as "one of the most ambitious parish churches in Somerset" — dates in its present form from the fifteenth century and is a Grade I listed building, its soaring tower presiding over the High Street of England's most legend-haunted town, where a descendant of the Glastonbury Thorn still grows in the churchyard and sends a blossom to the monarch every Christmas.

The present church replaced an earlier one. Documentary evidence for St John's survives only from the later twelfth century, but other evidence points to a church on this site significantly earlier: according to legend, the original was built by St Dunstan — Glastonbury's great abbot and reformer — in the tenth century. Recent excavations in the nave have revealed the foundations of a large central tower possibly dating from Saxon times, and a later Norman nave arcade on the same plan as the existing one. That central tower survived until the fifteenth century, when it is believed to have collapsed — prompting the rebuilding of the whole church in the Perpendicular Gothic style to which it now conforms in its entirety. Twelfth-century fabric survives in the north aisle, in the former St Katherine's Chapel. The church is built of Doulting stone, Street stone and the local Tor burr, laid out on a cruciform plan with an aisled nave and a clerestory of seven bays.

The west tower that replaced the fallen central one is the church's glory: 134½ feet high, the second tallest parish church tower in Somerset, with elaborate buttressing, panelling and battlements — a design said to have inspired numerous others, including the tower of Northington parish church in Hampshire. It has one charming oddity: a chiming clock, but no clock face. Bells have rung at St John's since 1403. The oldest existing bell was originally cast in 1612, inscribed "I sound to bid the sick repent in hope of life when breath is spent", and was recast in 1992; the ring of six was augmented to eight in 1878, the tenor weighing about fourteen hundredweight and the treble about five.

History has passed through the church in strange ways. Monmouth's rebel troops sheltered here in June 1685 during the Monmouth Rebellion, on their doomed march toward Sedgemoor; and on four occasions between 1800 and 1804, French prisoners of war were locked up overnight inside the church, presumably while in transit. Between 1856 and 1857 the church was restored and reseated by Sir George Gilbert Scott at a cost of £3,000, its Gothic character re-emphasised.

The interior holds four fifteenth-century tomb-chests, fifteenth-century stained glass in the chancel, medieval vestments, and a domestic cupboard of about 1500 that once belonged to Witham Charterhouse, the Carthusian priory. At the front of the tower are two large carvings — the "Madonna with Child" and the "Resurrection Christ" — early works of Ernst Blensdorf, carved in 1945 after his escape from the Nazis. The memorial window to Joseph and Elizabeth Bishop, installed in 1936, is by Archibald John Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts, and depicts the saints and legends associated with Glastonbury — fitting decoration for a church whose churchyard thorn descends, by cutting, from the Glastonbury Thorn itself, the tree said to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea. Each Christmas a blossom from the churchyard tree is sent to the reigning monarch: at the end of term the pupils of St John's Infants School gather round the tree, sing carols — including one specially written for the occasion — and the oldest pupil has the privilege of cutting the branch that is then taken to London. Near the church gates lies the tercentennial labyrinth, laid in 2007 to celebrate Glastonbury's town charter granted by Queen Anne in 1705 — a grass labyrinth of the classical seven-circuit design, its path traced in blue lias stone from the Tor, conceived by the Glastonbury geomancer and author Sig Lonegren.

The vicars of Glastonbury have been a remarkable line. Thomas Parfitt served longest — more than fifty-two years from 1812 until his death at eighty-eight in 1865, doubling as vicar of St Benedict's until it became a separate cure in 1845. His successor Charles Sydenham Ross — "of Scotch extraction, born at sea off the coast of Portugal" — introduced the surpliced choir and processions, and died during a service on Christmas Eve 1893; a local newspaper recorded that "he sank quietly to rest as his congregation were singing the Nunc Dimittis". Henry Lowry Barnwell, who had carried the parish through Ross's illness, served eighteen years until 1912, commemorated by a beautifully designed oak screen in the side chapel. Charles Victor Parkerson Day volunteered as a forces chaplain at the outbreak of the First World War, spending more than half his nine-year incumbency in France, Mesopotamia and other war zones, and was appointed CBE. Lionel Smithett Lewis (1921–1950) was a prominent anti-vivisectionist and a founder of Blue Cross, which campaigned against the inhumane treatment of horses at the front — and after coming to Glastonbury he developed a passionate interest in the Holy Grail and the legends of Joseph of Arimathea, becoming a well-known author on the subject. Alan Clarkson (from 1974) later became Archdeacon of Winchester; David MacGeoch served from 2008 to 2024, and the Reverend Alice Watson has been vicar since 2025, leading a joint benefice with St Benedict's, Glastonbury and St Mary's & All Saints, Meare.

Music remains central to St John's, which keeps close ties with Wells Cathedral nearby. The choir of adults and juniors, directed by the organist and choirmaster Matthew Redman, sings regularly in the cathedrals of Exeter, Salisbury, Hereford and Wells, and with the help of the Cathedral School and the Wells Cathedral organist the church appoints an annual organ scholar — the great Perpendicular church of the Avalon legends still singing at the heart of Glastonbury's High Street.