Glastonbury is a town of less than 10,000 inhabitants, but it is also a myth. A number of stories dating back to the Middle Ages link Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury and also to the legend of the Holy Grail, King Arthur and Avalon. The abbey flourished at that time, as do the many esoteric shops and services today, and then there is the annual Glastonbury Festival, one of the most important music events in Europe.

One legend claims that the abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century. But it´s proven, that the abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It was destroyed by a major fire in 1184. Reconstruction began almost immediately and the Lady Chapel, was consecrated in 1186. There is evidence that, in the 12th century, the ruined nave was renovated enough for services while the great new church was being constructed. Pilgrim visits had fallen and in 1191 the alleged discovery of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere's tomb in the cemetery provided fresh impetus for visiting Glastonbury. In the 14th century, only Westminster Abbey was more richly endowed and appointed than Glastonbury.
The abbey was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII of England. The last abbot, Richard Whiting, was hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor on Glastonbury Tor in 1539.

After the Dissolution, two of the abbey's manors in Wiltshire were sold by the Crown to John Thynne. The ruins of the abbey itself was stripped of lead and dressed stones hauled away to be used in other buildings. The site was granted by Edward VI to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset who established a colony of Protestant Dutch weavers on the site. When Seymour was attainted in 1551, the abbey site reverted to the crown, but the weavers remained until they were removed in the reign of Queen Mary. In 1559 Elizabeth I of England granted the site to Peter Carew, and it remained in private ownership until the beginning of the 20th century. Further stones were removed in the 17th century, so that by the beginning of the 18th century the abbey was described as a ruin. The only building to survive intact is the Abbot's Kitchen, which served as a Quaker meeting house. Early in the 19th century the site became a quarry.