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Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury

Buildings and structures completed in the 14th centuryBuildings and structures in Mendip DistrictChristian buildings and structures in the United KingdomGlastonburyGrade I listed buildings in Mendip District
KitchenOctagonal buildings in the United KingdomStone buildings
Glastonbury Abbey abbot's kitchen
Glastonbury Abbey abbot's kitchen

The Abbot's Kitchen is a mediaeval octagonal building that served as the kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. It is a Grade I listed building. The abbot's kitchen has been described as "one of the best preserved medieval kitchens in Europe". The stone-built construction dates from the 14th century and is one of a very few surviving mediaeval kitchens in the world.Historically, the Abbot of Glastonbury lived well, as demonstrated by the abbot's kitchen, with four large fireplaces at its corners. The kitchen was part of the opulent abbot's house, begun under Abbot John de Breynton (1334–1342). It is one of the best preserved medieval kitchens in Europe and the only substantial monastic building surviving at Glastonbury Abbey. The abbot's kitchen has been the only building at Glastonbury Abbey to survive intact. Later it was used as a Quaker meeting house.The building is supported by curved buttresses on each side leading up to a cornice with grotesque gargoyles. Inside are four large arched fireplaces with smoke outlets above them, with another outlet in the centre of the pyramidal roof. The building is designed so that hot air from the cooking fires would have risen up to the top of the building and escaped, whilst cooler air came from openings lower down and sunk into the kitchen, cooling it.The kitchen was attached to the 80 feet (24 m) high abbot's hall, although only one small section of its wall remains. The architect Augustus Pugin surveyed and recorded the building in the 1830s. The Abbot's Kitchen was again surveyed and conserved in 2013, reopening in 2014.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury
Magdalene Street,

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Wikipedia: Abbot's Kitchen, GlastonburyContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 51.145877 ° E -2.716651 °
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Abbot's Kitchen

Magdalene Street
BA6 9HW
England, United Kingdom
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Glastonbury Abbey abbot's kitchen
Glastonbury Abbey abbot's kitchen
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Glastonbury
Glastonbury

Glastonbury (, UK also ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, 23 miles (37 km) south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury is less than 1 mile (2 km) across the River Brue from Street, which is now larger than Glastonbury. Evidence from timber trackways such as the Sweet Track show that the town has been inhabited since Neolithic times. Glastonbury Lake Village was an Iron Age village, close to the old course of the River Brue and Sharpham Park approximately 2 miles (3 km) west of Glastonbury, that dates back to the Bronze Age. Centwine was the first Saxon patron of Glastonbury Abbey, which dominated the town for the next 700 years. One of the most important abbeys in England, it was the site of Edmund Ironside's coronation as King of England in 1016. Many of the oldest surviving buildings in the town, including the Tribunal, George Hotel and Pilgrims' Inn and the Somerset Rural Life Museum, which is based at the site of a 14th-century abbey manor barn, often referred to as a tithe barn, are associated with the abbey. The Church of St John the Baptist dates from the 15th century. The town became a centre for commerce, which led to the construction of the market cross, Glastonbury Canal and the Glastonbury and Street railway station, the largest station on the original Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The Brue Valley Living Landscape is a conservation project managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust and nearby is the Ham Wall National Nature Reserve. Glastonbury has been described as having a New Age community and possibly being where New Age beliefs originated at the turn of the twentieth century. It is notable for myths and legends often related to Glastonbury Tor, concerning Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and King Arthur. Joseph is said to have arrived in Glastonbury and stuck his staff into the ground, when it flowered miraculously into the Glastonbury Thorn. The presence of a landscape zodiac around the town has been suggested but no evidence has been discovered. The Glastonbury Festival, held in the nearby village of Pilton, takes its name from the town.