
Hello and Welcome to Friends of Bride's Mound TM Small it may be, but its history is great, being known as the western gateway to Avalon where pilgrims would stay in vigil through the night before passing on up the processional way to Avalon proper - and to the Tor. The mound appears to have served this function through a seamless transition into the Christian period, as this is the legendary site of a pre-Christian bruga - a Druidic hostel/college. Such an established spritual community would have been a fertile source of recruitment for monks at the fledgeling abbey. Later, King Arthur is said to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child here, and that St. Brigid of Kildare (Brighde) stayed here in 488 AD. Two stone chapels were dedicated to her and built, consecutively, on the same site where, as legend would have it, stood a much earlier wooden structure - the Shrine of Saint Mary Magdalene- during Brigid's time. As so often happens on the Isle of Avalon, the results of archaeological investigations turn out to be remarkably consistant with ancient legend. Download our January 2008 Newsletter Here (pdf file) |
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