A Glastonbury Abbey that belongs to the whole town — not just to those who can afford the ticket.
Walk in off the High Street, any day, for free. Sit on the grass with a picnic under the ruins. Our vision is a row of semi-permanent market huts inside the grounds, open every day — local makers, food stalls, craft traders — alongside the shop and café that are already there, plus smaller regular events like local bands on a summer evening. Paid tickets would stay, but only for the museum and the big set-piece concerts. Spend the whole day in Glastonbury, not forty-five minutes behind a ticket barrier, and spend it in town: in the cafés, the independent shops on the High Street, and now inside the Abbey too.
The situation as it actually is
We looked into who owns the Abbey and how it's funded before writing a word of campaign material, because getting this wrong would sink the campaign before it started.
- Glastonbury Abbey is run by an independent registered charity (no. 1129263), governed by 11 unpaid trustees who are appointed, not elected, and have no formal accountability to the town.
- It's financially healthy: £2.93m income and a £572,000 surplus in 2024, while general admission stays at £14 and event tickets top £50.
- Over £1.4m of public and charitable money (National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Government's Towns Fund, and several charitable trusts) already funded the new Abbey Yard entrance, which opened in April 2025 — and it proved the model works: the Yard itself and St Patrick's Chapel are now free to enter for everyone.
- Glastonbury Town Council already runs a heritage site with a shop and museum of its own — The Tribunal, leased from English Heritage since October 2023 — and a growing market operation. This isn't untested; it's happening two minutes from the Abbey gates.
We are not claiming the Abbey is privately or commercially owned, or that any outside company or investor profits from it. That claim doesn't hold up — Companies House confirms no individual or company holds a controlling interest in either the Abbey or its trading subsidiary. The real story is a wealthy, publicly-subsidised local charity with no democratic accountability to the town that hosts it.
Why this is winnable
This isn't a demand from nothing. Reading Abbey Ruins reopened free in 2018 after a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant and Reading Borough Council match-funding — the closest structural comparison to Glastonbury Abbey anywhere in England. Bath Abbey and Exeter Cathedral already give free entry to local residents. And here at home, the Town Council's own Tribunal museum and its growing market prove the council can already run exactly this kind of public-benefit heritage operation.
What we're campaigning for
- A community/town seat on the Abbey's board of trustees, so decisions on pricing, events and grounds use include a democratic voice for the town.
- Free daily access to the grounds, with market huts and small local events, and paid tickets kept only for the museum and the big set-piece concerts.
- A share of the Abbey's success reinvested back into the town, in recognition of the public and charitable money already invested in it.
Every fact in this post is sourced from the Charity Commission, Companies House, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Glastonbury Town Council's own published accounts. Want to get involved? Email us at takebacktheabbey@glastonburylive.uk.
