Alice Buckton

Alice Buckton 1867-1944

The people who today visit Chalice Well and the gardens are probably unaware of the courage and vision of a pioneering spirit who moved from London in 1913 to dedicate herself to the site for over thirty years. Alice Mary Buckton was born on 9th March 1867.

As a young woman she was engaged in social work among the poor under the direction of Octavia Hill. By the early twentieth century she had become Vice Principal of the Sesame House for Home Life Training in Highgate, London. She had also begun to write plays and poetry. Her first book of poems, ‘Through Human Eyes’ was published in 1901 and was dedicated to her close friend and companion Annet Schepel who was to join her in Glastonbury. In 1904 her most famous play, ‘Eager Heart’ was published and this was a success being produced in London, Glastonbury and America many times over the coming years. Further plays and books of poetry followed. There is a religious/spiritual element in many of these, along with a love of nature, which combine to make her see God in all things.

At the age of 46 she suddenly gave up her life in London and came to Glastonbury. Encouraged by Archdeacon Basil Wilberforce she purchased the Chalice Well property in order to preserve the ancient Well and keep it maintained and open to the public. Dion Fortune, writing in ‘Avalon of the Heart’ in 1934 said: ‘The holy well had a certain definite value as a source of water power…but as a source of spiritual power it was a pearl of great price…and Miss Buckton, putting on a cloak of blue Welsh linen with silver clasps, explained its history and symbolism to visitors.’

Miss Buckton immediately launched ‘The Chalice Well Hostel – a College for the Training of Gentlewomen for Dedicated Work.’ There was an extensive curriculum that included weaving, home management, botany, zoology, art and philosophy. The Chalice Well Hostel was in a wing of the large building which then stood at the bottom of the site by Chilkwell Street. The chapel in this building (which had been occupied by a Belgian order of monks until 1911) was open daily for silent prayer and meditation and the well spring was uncovered each day at noon. After the Great War in 1919, Bligh Bond designed a new cover for the well, which incorporated the ‘vesica piscis’ and ‘bleeding lance’ symbolism. Miss Buckton also opened a shop in Glastonbury on the site of the present Growing Needs bookshop, selling cards, pottery, crafts and reproductions of the Glastonbury Bowl from the Lake Village.

‘The Coming of Bride’ was a pageant play, which she staged with the co-operation of her students in the Assembly Rooms in the High Street and at Crispin Hall in Street. In 1918, Methuen published another book of verse, entitled ‘Daybreak’, inscribed to ‘The Watchers in Avalon and to all who dare to turn the rim of the Golden Wheel.’ Her interest in mysticism and Celtic mythology were now more to the fore. Throughout the 1920’s there were dramatic productions staged at Chalice Well including a masque called ‘The Garden of Many Waters’. She brought the whole of Glastonbury together for her ‘Pageant Festival’ in 1922 and managed to film proceedings. This film was shown at Strode College, Street in February 2004. A copy is held at the British Film Institute in London.

In the early 1930’s her friend Miss Schepel died and there were money difficulties. Alice let the large building to two schoolmasters who started the Tor School. In her later years she became eccentric and absent minded and often slept in a cedarwood hut in the upper orchard on the slopes of Chalice Hill. Finally, she became ill and was cared for by friends in Wells where she died in 1944. She had outlined plans for the continuation of the project but they were to dwindle and collapse without her guiding hands. It was to be fourteen years before Chalice Well grounds once more came onto the open market and were purchased by Wellesley Tudor Pole and the Chalice Well Trust. We can remember Alice as the Vicar of St. John’s described her in the parish magazine, ‘a great soul, a great mind, a great heart, a most remarkable personality.’

Further reading:
‘Avalon of the Heart’ - Dion Fortune 1934
‘The Avalonians’ - Patrick Benham 1993,2006
‘Beneath the Silent Tor’ - Tracy Cutting 2004
‘This Enchanting Place – Facets of Chalice Well’ - ed. Ann Procter 2006

Written by Paul Fletcher with thanks to Rosemary Harris and Chalice Well Trust Archive - March 2008. Copyright of The Chalice Well Trust.

Thanks to Gothic Image for the photograph. see their website for more info on books and tours