Hidden Glastonbury: The festival's best kept secrets

There are hundreds of experiences to sample away from the main stages

A mythical and magical underground bar, a hot tub, a sauna, a woodland chill-out zone, even flushing toilets. We investigate the best-kept secrets at the Glastonbury Festival.

There is much more to Glastonbury than its main stages, big-name bands and thronging nightspots.

The festival's fringes are filled with attractions and curiosities to explore - but you have to look hard to the find its most secret and special corners.

Armed with nothing more than a pair of wellies and a sense of curiosity, I set out to track down some of Glastonbury's more mysterious night-spots.

The underground piano bar

It is the stuff of Glastonbury legend - a hidden underground bar that does not appear on any maps or official guides, where well-known artists have been known to turn up for surprise sets.

Armed with a little knowledge, I begin searching in the Green Crafts field, looking between and beyond the stalls where you can weave your dreams or carve a plate or make your own vegan spa products, for any sign of something that might look like an entrance to a hidden bar.

After walking around the field three times, I wander into a neighbouring area. Eventually, there is an inconspicuous pathway through the trees, with some kind of doorway at the bottom. But the path is fenced off and the doorway is closed.

So I come back later. With no signs and no lighting, you could easily walk close by and not realise anything is there. But this time, down the path is a queue of several dozen people leading to the hatch. The secret is clearly out.

When I get near the front of the queue, a wild-looking Irish doorman who seems to go by the name Gollum is waving his little finger in the air and delivering a stream of consciousness about how Kanye West "broke the universe".

Entrance test

I get to the front. "Kiss my finger!" Gollum demands. "Kiss my finger! Kiss it! Get to the back of the queue if you won't kiss it. Oh, OK, go in then."

I step past, relieved to have avoided puckering up, into a half-height, pitch black tunnel. That opens out into the bar - which is more like a Hobbit-sized dancehall, with a narrow sunken dancefloor that has been dug into the hillside, flanked by steep earthy stepped seating, and with a high stage at one end.

The name is a bit misleading. There is no piano that I can see, the bar does not turn out to sell alcohol and most of it is not underground. Instead, it has long, sturdy branches - with twigs and leaves still attached - holding up a canvas roof.

On stage is a band playing accordion and fiddle Balkan folk, to occasional whoops and claps from the patrons. Some are revelling in this fantasy creation. Others have looks of happy bemusement, and will at least be able to say they have found the piano bar.

The Rabbit Hole

The other bar that is shrouded in intrigue is the Rabbit Hole. This one, in the Park area, is in the brochure. A large bar is open to all and hosts bands, but there is an inner world where weird and wonderful things are supposed to happen. And the queue is even longer.

This time, I do not have time to join it. Inside, apparently, there is an Alice in Wonderland theme with a warren of tunnels and rooms, all guarded by gatekeepers dressed as characters from the book, who ask you to solve riddles before letting you through.

I walk around the edge to peek inside, and see on a collection of teeming multi-coloured tents. On the edge, raised up, is a steaming hot tub that is full of people and, as far as I can make out, is presided over by the Mad Hatter. That experience can wait for next time.

Strummerville

A woodland clearing on the festival's southern frontier, between the piano bar and Rabbit Hole, is a new area named after the late Clash frontman and Glastonbury regular Joe Strummer.

It is well out of the way and, inside, a DJ on a simple wooden stage is playing lazy funk and reggae as a few people dance gently.

Strummer was a regular around a Glastonbury camp fire, and in the centre of Strummerville is a blaze with a full-time warden to keep it going. It is surrounded by easy chairs and sofas where friends have settled in for the night, while others sit on the grass between the clumps of bracken.

There are a few hundred people chilling out. It would be very easy to lose hours here while listening to the laid-back music and chatting to friends.

The Lost Horizon sauna

I have seen signs for a sauna at Glastonbury in the past, and always thought they must be some kind of joke.

But no - I follow the signs and in the corner of the tipi field is a screened-off area called Lost Horizon, which contains a wood-burning sauna in one corner, a massage tent in another, plus cold showers and a basic stage down one side.

In the centre, people are sitting, talking, relaxing. Some are fully clothed. Others let it all hang out.

Lost Horizon offers to cleanse mind and body. Just outside is another campfire, surrounded by rough-hewn wooden benches, where a few people sit quietly. Suddenly, the bands and crowds just down the hill seem very distant. This feels like the spiritual heart of the festival.

Among the services on offer, the lady at the entrance to Lost Horizon tells me, is a naked yoga class the following morning. But that is one adventure too far for me.

Flushing toilets

The real holy grail of Glastonbury - proper loos.

If you are not keen on the composting toilets or long drops that usually provide relief here, seek out the two rows of flushing toilets on the northern edge of the site, near the medical centre.

Pictures of Glastonbury co-founders Andrew Kerr and Arabella Churchill, who have both died in recent years, have been painted onto the ends on the ends of the two blocks.

I'm not sure whether it is what they would have wanted. But being commemorated on Glastonbury toilet blocks somehow seems a fitting tribute.