The cathedral in Britain's smallest city

To Pembrokeshire, where the smallest city in Britain can be located. There are villages that are bigger in terms of population (it has around 1,800 inhabitants), but this place can claim to be a city because it has a cathedral. That’s not always the case, by the way; Southwark has a cathedral but it’s a London borough (not a city), and Derby had a cathedral for fifty years before it was given city status. And the city I’m talking about hasn’t always been a city – it became one in the early 1540s, when Henry VIII founded six new dioceses in England Wales, issuing some letters patent as he did so declaring every town that had a cathedral to be a city. Then it lost its city status in 1888 when the link between cities and cathedrals was abolished, but it was given said status back in 1994 at the request of the Queen (who conferred the letters patent in person in a ceremony in the cathedral in 1995).  

I am talking, of course, about St Davids (which in this context could refer to the city, the cathedral or indeed the diocese; the apostrophe would appear to be optional). The cathedral is the last resting-place of the saint that bears its name – Dewi Sant, as he’s referred to in Welsh (the Welsh name for ‘his’ city is Tyddewi, which literally means ‘David’s house’). The only one of the Home Nations patron saints to have been from the country of which he is the saint, St David was born in or around the year 500, just to the south of what’s now St Davids but which apparently used to be called Mynyw or Menevia. His mother was St Non (a nun), and the priest who baptised him may have been St Eilw (in English, St Elvis). A holy man who appears to have lived mainly on a diet of bread, water and leeks, he founded several monastic communities during the Dark Ages – a time when escaping from the troubles of a troubled world was all the rage throughout Christendom, as witness St Anthony going out into the desert in Egypt, St Benedict setting out his monastic rules in Italy and numerous holy people making their way to Cornwall. St David attracted a reputation that spread beyond Wales for ascetism (he had his follower renounce personal property to the point where referring to a book as ‘my book’ was forbidden) and preaching. His most famous miracle occurred when he preached at the Synod of Brefi (later renamed Llandewi Brefi in his honour) – everyone wanted to hear him but hardly anyone could see him, so the ground rose up underneath him so that they all could (more than one historian has been moved to comment that, as miracles go, the creation of a new hill in Wales is a bit on the superfluous side). He was declared to be a bishop by popular acclaim. He died on 1^st March, a date to be forever after commemorated as St David’s Day.

In the city that bears his name, and which started out as the settlement surrounding the first monastic community that he founded, the focal point is of course the cathedral which lies in the valley of the River Alun. Said monastic community was renowned for its men of learning – Asser, one Alfred the Great’s key advisors, was originally a monk at St Davids, and the twelfth-century chronicler Gerald of Wales is also associated with the place (an archdeacon, he hoped to be the Bishop of St Davids, like his uncle before him, but he never achieved that aim; tellingly, his statue in the cathedral has a mitre at his feet, not on his head).

Much of the current building dates back to the twelfth century, and it’s made of grey and purple-ish sandstone which was quarried locally. For some reason it has a distinct slope, east to west, which I have not encountered in any other cathedral I’ve ever visited. It was an important place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages – two Kings of England, William the Conqueror and Henry II, came to pay their respects and the Pope at one point declared that two pilgrimages to St Davids served as the equivalent of one pilgrimage to Rome.

Although the shrine to St David was done away with during the Reformation, in recent years it has been restored – it was rededicated in 2012 (on 1^st March, of course) and to be honest I can think of no other saintly shrine in Britain. Not in an Anglican place of worship at any rate, St David’s Cathedral and the diocese that goes with it being Church in Wales (the C of E having been disestablished in Wales in 1920).

Also buried in the cathedral are a few notable men from Welsh history. From the twelfth century, there are the afore-mentioned Gerald of Wales and the Lord Rhys, ruler of much of south Wales (although he was a prince and his name was Rhys ap Gruffydd, he’s always called the Lord Rhys, always with the definitive article); well, there are in any rate two effigies in the south choir aisle that claim to be the effigies of those two. Close to St David’s shrine is the tomb of Edmund Tudor, the half-brother of Henry VI (same mother) and the father of Henry VII who died in 1456, before the birth of his son (who was born the following year in Pembroke Castle).

I rather like St David’s Cathedral, which has an unfussed air when compared to a few other cathedrals I could mention. Perhaps the fact that it’s located in a valley, and is therefore not a prominent landmark on the skyline, might have something to do with it. Maybe it’s the rather plain-looking west front, or the wooden ceiling over the nave that, but for its size, looks more like the ceiling of a parish church than that of a cathedral.

Or it could be the fact that you don’t really see the cathedral until after you’ve walked through the gatehouse, when it and the picturesque ruins of the Bishop’s Palace are laid out before and below you (the Bishops of St David’s haven’t actually lived in St Davids since the sixteenth century; maybe that explains it!). When you enter, there’s no cash-desk confronting you – just a friendly person, sporting a cassock and a dog-collar more often than not, ready with a leaflet, an answer to any questions you may have and very little by way of the hard sell concerning ‘voluntary’ donations.

There is, I’ve found, invariably something interesting going on in St Davids. The last time I was there, it happened to be on Ascension Day which is the day when the cathedral plays host to an activity day for all of the local primary schools. At the moment, all of the lamp-posts and bollards of the city are sporting colourful knitwear, as is the market cross and quite a few of the railings and benches. This, I am reliably informed, is to commemorate the Cathedral Festival, an annual music festival that’s taking place there at the moment (as it does during the May half-term week every year).

Also sporting a distinctly knitted appearance is the altar-cloth in the cathedral’s Chapel of St Nicholas (behind and to the left of the high altar); I think it looks great, and wouldn’t it be fantastic if such a style caught on?