A great fire at Glastonbury in 1184 had destroyed the monastic buildings.

Reconstruction had begun almost immediately and the Lady Chapel, which includes the well, had been consecrated in 1186.

There is evidence that, in the twelfth century, the ruined nave was renovated enough for services while the great new church was being constructed.

Parts of the walls of the aisle and crossing had been completed by 1189, but progress had then continued more slowly.

If pilgrim visits had fallen, the discovery of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere's tomb in the cemetery in 1191 provides fresh impetus for visiting Glastonbury.

A contemporaneous, though not an eyewitness account was given by Giraldus Cambrensis in his De principis instructione ("Instruction of a Prince," about 1193) and recollected in his Speculum Ecclesiae, around 1216, according to which the abbot, Henry de Sully, commissioned a search, discovering at the depth of sixteen feet (five meters) a massive hollowed oak trunk containing two skeletons.

Above it, under the covering stone, according to Giraldus, was a leaden cross with the unmistakably specific inscription Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia ("Here lies interred the famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon").

According to Geraldus, the digging for the tomb was prompted by the intelligence obtained by Henry II from an aged British (Welsh) bard (Latin: historico cantore Britone audierat antiquo).

In contrast, Ralph of Coggeshall, writing somewhat later, states more prosaically that they came upon the older tomb by chance while removing the earth to bury a certain monk who had expressed strong desire to be buried there.

Both Giraldus and Ralph say that the spot lay in between two pyramids in the abbey.

William of Malmesbury does not refer to Arthur's tomb but elaborates on the pyramids of varying height, upon which were statues with inscriptions "Her Sexi, and Bliserh... Pencrest, Bantomp, Pinepegn, etc."