To feel weird in Glastonbury

[Wellsbells]

I moved about a half hour’s drive from Glastonbury a few years ago but have only visited the town itself once. I hated it. It just felt uncomfortable and a bit sinister, and I couldn’t wait to leave. I’ve not felt that way anywhere else, I mean there are places I like more than others of course but this was just a really strong sense of “I want to get out of here”. Would be interested to know if anyone else has felt this way? Or about anywhere else?

This being on a busy street packet with shops where you could buy crystals, cauldrons, capes and broomsticks everywhere, but had to look to find bread and milk.

It is quite an intense place in this respect, even if you're not really looking for it it's so full on you still notice. It's nothing about the geographical location, just the culture it's attracted that makes it feel different.

I love Glastonbury, we live about an hour away and go there a few times a year including camping for a week in the summer, I feel at home there but then I would describe myself as ‘a bit alternative and hippy’, I love the shops, love the people (even the stoned ones) and I love how no one cares what anyone is wearing, you often see people walking bare foot, men wearing skirts and people wearing odd hats 🤣, My Dd1 has Aspergers and says she feels happy there because everyone can be who they want to be without anyone judging.

I can see why many don’t like it, I guess you need to be certain type of person to feel the Glastonbury love ❤️. For me it’s a spiritual place (the abbey, the tor and the well) and a great place to go shopping for weird and wonderful things.

I felt this way about Taunton in Somerset.

I like Malvern, I've never found it weird at all! Love all the walks around there.

I love Malvern too. But yes, it comes up on 'sinister town' threads regularly.

I loved it. Felt really comfortable and at home and wished I could have stayed longer.

Chalice Well is one of the most mystical places I’ve ever been.

It’s always been that way for me as well. Weird energy there.

I like it but it's a bit woo! I like in a much more sensible town but it's a great place to visit for a non essential trip once they are allowed, last went in May when they allowed you to sit and eat picnics again

@AnneLovesGilbert

I loved it. Felt really comfortable and at home and wished I could have stayed longer.

Chalice Well is one of the most mystical places I’ve ever been.

That’s how I feel. You must be my type of person 🤣 Chalice Well is an amazing place, last year when w went a lovely lady across the road offered me her parking space for the day so we didn’t have to pay the crazy parking prices.

I love the clothes shop near the Abbey, I spent a fortune there last year on dungarees and other hippy things.

It feels like home to me when we visit.

Frome is also lovely, not so hippy but almost as nice.

[quote Wellsbells]@avocadoinasidecar someone has written a book about my experiences? I wish they’d told me[/quote]
haha this made me chuckle

I went to Glastonbury (town) for the first time last summer. It didn’t feel unsettling to me, I was simply entertained by all the New Age shops and unusual people wandering around.

We walked up Glastonbury Tor, which was amazing. I could happily have spent all day up there.

There was a similar thread a while ago about Bath and other places with weird vibes, and a lot of people mentioned Glastonbury. It was interesting!

Here's the link:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3826348-To-ask-for-your-experiences-with-Bath-strange-atmospheres

Feel like this about hebden bridge - I'm quite "alternative" for want of a better word, so in theory I should feel right at home there, but it gives me the fear.

Thanks @DisappearingGirl!

I ran out of the church in Cromarty years ago - such a weird feeling about the place.

This is on my list of must visits

I have heard people say it's a bit Marmite but no one has mentioned feeling odd there.

YANBU it's intense, oppressive and sinister.
Never been to Malvern but stayed in a campsite just across the border from Wye in Wales in 2019 and the whole area just felt incredibly strange and over bearing. On the drive home couldn't wait to get out of the Hereford/Shropshire weirdness.

Someone warned me off the 'mephitic vapours' of Bath once, but I've never felt it to be that odd. We live near both there and Glastonbury, and I don't really mind either of them.

The place that does feel most odd though, is the centre of Bruton, which is enclosed and lowering and all wrong. I was going to say despite the fact that lots of idiot posh people and Sarah Beeney live there, but maybe that's the problem. Although it's always felt peculiar, long before George Osborne.

Oh I loved it! It's like a New Age Disneyland, loads of fun and kilims and vegan cake and people making money out of it. The Tor is amazing, I do think it has an energy but I quite like a bit of that.

I found Avebury had tons of that going on in a 1970s BBC children's horror/drama way - but that's what I went there for tbh.

We love Bath too 😐, full of history, has to be my favourite city though we haven’t been to many. I don’t get the same feeling as Glastonbury though, Glastonbury makes me feel relaxed and at home (maybe it’s the smell of weed that chills me out).

I looked forward to seeing Glastonbury for ages as I love anything a bit wierdy and woo but I felt exactly as you did. I loved the main street and the shops but there was something a bit like a lurking sense of menace that built up the longer I was there until I couldn't wait to leave

I hear you on Bruton. It has a coldness about it.

I love visiting Glastonbury - the tor, the Chalice Well, the White Spring, the Abbey are all beautiful, and I do like poking around the shops, but then I'm quite tolerant of crystals / patchouli / etc. I couldn't live there though because it would just get too much for me.

My sister lives there and it's driving her mad. She can't wait to get away from the anti-vax 5G conspiracy theorist nutjobs who congregate there.

For lowkey menace I give you Swaffham and Scarborough.

My DH doesn't like Dartington near Totnes. He's convinced it has malevolent ley lines.

And The Vyne near Basingstoke.