Glamping Breaks
When will The Heavenly Canopy Glamping Site open?
When I was at university, studying Zoology with Agriculture, I had no idea what job I wanted to do. One day, when starting to think about possible careers, I remembered the joy I got from teaching other people to play sports. Then I thought, “Maybe I could be a teacher?”. After my degree I did a further year in teacher training and qualified in 1983. I’ve enjoyed teaching but now (in early 2025) I’ve decided to finish teaching and see a vision for a glamping site in Somerset come about, called ‘Heavenly Canopy’. In some ways I sense my life has been a preparation for this… so, having been thinking, praying and talking about this vision for a number of years, it is now time to actually start doing something about it!
Finding the right land in the right place is the next thing to do. I will have some funds to invest in the project but I know it will only come to fruition as God releases funds through generous donors and investors. A famous missionary (Hudson Taylor, who went to China in the 1800s), once said this, “God’s work, done in God’s ways will never lack God’s supply!” Heavenly Canopy will be much more than just a glamping business but, once established, the glamping side of the vision will be central to the business income. It would be brilliant to open in the summer of 2025 or as soon after as possible, even if only with a few tents, and that is what I am aiming for.
If you remember watching the opening ceremony of the London 2012 summer Olympics (written by the film director Danny Boyle) you might recall that one of the first images used was of a small green hill, based on Glastonbury Tor… with the ruined church tower on its summit being replaced by a mature English oak tree. Indeed, the first chapter of the opening ceremony was entitled ‘Green and Pleasant Land’, a phrase taken from the famous poem (later given a tune to make it one of the best known hymns in the English language) by William Blake:
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant land.
Beneath the poem Blake inscribed a quotation from the Bible:
“Would to God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets”
(Numbers chapter 11 verse 29)
The whole song was sung by a soloist and choir and it is significant that all of the pre-Industrial Revolution history of the British Isles was centred around the legend at the core of that hymn… that Jesus visited these islands during the silent years when the Bible does not say what he did or where he travelled (from the age of 12 to about 30). There are many oral stories passed down the centuries from both Cornwall and Somerset that include references to Jesus visiting these areas with his uncle (or great-uncle), Joseph of Arimathea. Some claim his relative was a metal trader and bought tin from Cornwall and lead from Somerset, to take back to Israel and use in his business there. Lead has been found near Jerusalem (that the Romans used to line aqueducts… not a great idea from a health point of view) which has marks stamped on it indicating it came from Somerset!
Why the Glastonbury Area?
Joseph’s activities in Britain may well have been centred on the Glastonbury area and that is why Heavenly Canopy will be based near that Somerset town, with line of sight to the famous tor. It will intentionally be linked to these legends and, I believe, there is a nugget of truth in them which can benefit us today, nearly 2,000 years afterwards.
Somerset is not of central importance to day in England but it has been in the past. It was the site where the first Christian building was built anywhere in the world (which led to the construction of Glastonbury Abbey). This is the true ‘mother church’ location for the British church… in Somerset. After the Anglo-Saxon settlements of the 5th and 6th centuries the Viking invasions 300 years later threatened to kill off any hope of an English nation developing. It fell to one man, king Alfred the Great, who led an army of Somerset men, with others, from the marshes of the Somerset levels to defeat the Great Pagan Army nearby. Alfred’s grandson established England on the foundations his grandfather had laid down, which were strongly Christian in nature. After the Reformation in the 1500s it was John Wesley who led the Methodist revival which helped to prevent Great Britain falling into a secular revolution as happened in France. One of his three national bases was in Bristol, then part of Somerset.
Heavenly Canopy will partly be a celebration of these past key events in our national history and also be focused, as a place of prayer, on the belief that God will move one more time in what has become a largely secular nation. Our prayer will be that we can be used by God to see what has been started in the past come to a glorious completion in our generation. If you would like to be involved in such prayer then get involved with the…
Heavenly Canopy
Glamping in a Beautiful Mystical Setting
If you would like to be a part of the team that develops this vision and makes it a reality, please contact me: HERE