Peter Knight led us to the Lady Chapel, through which he describes the Mary current of the St Michael Line flows. We stood at the altar here in front, where I experienced a level of quiet and peace. According to legend it was here that Joseph of Arimethea was led to found a wood and wattle church in 160 AD, dedicated to Christ and St Peter, the rock as he is referred to in Christian lore. In 601 AD the Isle of Avalon was a monastic island and by 633 AD, according to Peter K (p 81 of his The Wessex Astrum) the Vdstusta Ecclesia had been walled up in order to preserve its sacred and crumbling stonework. A new abbey was built in 1082 and was demolished in 1110 so an even more magnificant ediface could be erected. The Abbey was quite the marketing tool for pilgrimage as the bodies of King Arthur and Queen Guenivere reputedly discovered by the monks were here. Once one of the richest abbeys in England, it was destroyed by Henry VIII's crew in 1539 and these are the remains of that plunder.
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