Latest news with #StDavid
Telegraph
01-03-2025
- Telegraph
The secrets of Pembrokeshire, the loveliest county in Wales
Pembrokeshire, in the furthest west of Wales, not only gave us Britain's sole native-born patron saint, but also Stonehenge, algebra, and the Tudor dynasty. It was here that the last invasion of Britain took place. It is the home of Britain's smallest city, the country's only coast-based national park, and the 'finest port in Christendom'. According to legend, St David was born around 500AD in the middle of a stone circle on top of Pembrokeshire's westernmost cliff, today known as St David's Head, and at the moment of his birth a spring appeared that is still reputed to have healing properties. The ruins of a small chapel dedicated to David's mother, St Non, mark the spot. It is a wild and beautiful place and one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain. St David died on March 1 589AD – exactly 1,436 years ago – and is buried not far away beneath the magnificent cathedral named after him. He founded a monastery there in the 6th-century, so hidden and remote that it was overlooked by rampaging Vikings, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. The Normans built a small chapel over the grave but after the Pope declared that 'two pilgrimages to St David's is equal to one to Rome, and three pilgrimages to one to Jerusalem', the shrine attracted so many pilgrims that a bigger church was needed and the building of the present St David's Cathedral was begun around 1176. With its quiet location, tucked into a grassy hollow on the edge of Britain's smallest city, and with its gorgeous mauve and honey-coloured stonework, sprinkled with lichens, this crooked, rough-hewn church, redolent of the simple faith that built it, qualifies as many people's loveliest cathedral. St David's and St Non's Chapel both lie within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, covering 186 miles of ravishing coastline including rugged cliffs, sea stacks, sandy beaches, windswept islands and an abundance of historic sites. St David's sits just to the north of the Landsker Line, an ancient imaginary border between the Welsh-speaking natives to the north and the English-speaking lands settled by the Normans from England to the south. Some 20 miles north of the Landsker is Fishguard, a handsome harbour town that grew up between golden Goodwick Sands and the original fishing village full of brightly coloured cottages, where Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor filmed Under Milk Wood in 1971. Above the door of the Royal Oak in Fishguard's main square is a sign saying 'The Last Invasion of Britain Peace Treaty was signed here in 1797'. A force of some 1,400 French soldiers landed on the coast north of Fishguard intending to ferment a British revolution, but were seen off by the Pembroke Yeomanry and a group of local women in red shawls and tall hats who resembled an army of redcoats. Across from the Royal Oak, in the Town Hall, the 100-foot-long Last Invasion Tapestry, hand-woven by local women, tells the story, while a brisk two-mile walk north along the clifftops brings you to a memorial stone that stands above the beach at Carreg Y Wastad where the French landed. South east of Fishguard are the Preseli Hills, a land of wild moorland and rocky outcrops offering spectacular views north to Snowdonia and across the sea to the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. The hills abound with prehistoric sites including, on its northern edge, Pentre Ifan, a megalithic burial chamber formed of a huge capstone resting on three bluestone pillars quarried from the nearby rocks of Carn Menyn. The pillars are made of the same unique bluestone as those found at Stonehenge, suggesting that the Preseli Hills were the source of the Stonehenge bluestones. South of the Landsker are the powerful 12th-century Norman castles of Pembroke and Haverfordwest, the county town. The ruins of Haverfordwest's castle sit on a high ridge overlooking the high street, one of the finest in Wales. It climbs steeply up from the River Cleddau and is lined with shops and houses of every age, including a fine Shire Hall of 1837. Historic Pembroke, a pleasant town of narrow byways with Elizabethan and Georgian houses tucked in behind unbroken medieval walls, basks beneath the mighty walls of Pembroke Castle. Begun in wood in 1093, rebuilt in stone 100 years later and occupying an almost impregnable site on a rocky promontory surrounded on three sides by water, Pembroke is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in Britain. In 1170 the Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare, departed from the castle to commence the Norman invasion of Ireland while Harry Tudor, later Henry VII, was born in the castle, which then belonged to his uncle Jasper Tudor, on January 28, 1457. Twenty-eight years later in 1485, Henry returned from exile and landed at Mill Bay below St Ann's Head, 15 miles to the west at the mouth of the Daugleddau estuary, before marching up through Wales to meet Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, where he won the Crown and launched the Royal House of Tudor. Three miles off St Ann's Head, Skokholm Island is the site of Britain's first bird observatory set up in 1933 by ornithologist Ronald Lockley, who also wrote the book called The Private Life of the Rabbit, about the rabbits on the island, left over from a Victorian rabbit farm, which inspired Richard Adams' Watership Down. To the north is Skomer, home to one of Britain's largest sea bird colonies of mainly puffins, guillemots and razorbills. Both islands can be visited by boat from Martin's Haven Beach. On the north shore of the Daugleddau estuary, which forms one of the largest natural harbours in the world, sits Milford Haven, described by Nelson as 'the finest port in Christendom'. Henry II, King John and Oliver Cromwell all sailed from here to invade Ireland, and at the end of the 18th-century the port was developed as a Royal Dockyard to provide ships for Nelson's navy by Sir William Hamilton, husband of Nelson's lover Emma, who inherited the land from his first wife. Nelson's connection to the town is recalled by the Lord Nelson Hotel on Hamilton Terrace, a smart row of Georgian houses overlooking the water, which ends at St Katherine's Church where Sir William Hamilton is buried. Built into the cliff-face of St Govan's Head on the coast south of Milford Haven sits tiny St Govan's, a 13th-century chapel constructed around a cave used as a cell by the 6th-century monk St Govan, who is thought to be buried beneath the chapel's altar. This mysterious and magical place can be reached by descending a set of stairs that – so the legend goes – never count the same when climbing back up. The national park ends at the pretty seaside town of Tenby, of which the artist Augustus John, born there in 1878, said: 'You may travel the world over but you will find nowhere more beautiful'. As well as golden beaches and pale-painted Victorian guesthouses, historic Tenby boasts a castle, 13th-century town walls, a 15th-century Tudor Merchant's House, a unique 16th-century fortified barbican gatehouse of five arches and the largest parish church in Wales, where there is a memorial to Tenby-born Robert Recorde, the mathematician who wrote the first book on equations and algebra in English and, in 1557, invented the equals sign (=). It all adds up to make the loveliest county in Wales.
Telegraph
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Sacred Mysteries: Elvis, godfather of the patron saint of Wales
Elvis Presley bore the name of the saint who baptised St David, the patron of Wales whose day we mark today, March 1. Whether the singer's parents, who married when his father Vernon Elvis Presley was 17, knew of the Welsh saint is another question. St Elvis is or was the smallest parish in Wales at 200 acres. I have taken the T11 bus from Haverfordwest to the little city of St Davids, but I do not think that St Elvis Farm, east of Solva, is visible from it in the lie of the land. Stones from the old church, which was already dilapidated in the 19th century, were incorporated 100 years ago into a barn on the farm, according to Terry Breverton's A to Z of Wales. An antiquity near the track at St Elvis Farm far older than St David's life in the 6th century is a double cromlech, the remains of two burial chambers made of monoliths, built more than 4,000 years ago. But the stones are fallen and you'd have to be keen on cromlechs to go to see them. If this is where St Elvis baptised St David, there would have been plenty of water, for a holy well flows there, at a rate of six gallons a minute even in the drought year of 1976. St Elvis is only the English version of the name of an Irishman called St Ailbe. He was a bishop reputed to have preceded St Patrick in Ireland, though their dates are hard to reconcile. He founded the monastery of Emly, a bishopric that in the shrinking Church of Ireland eventually became part of the United Dioceses of Limerick, Ardfert, Aghadoe, Killaloe, Kilfenora, Clonfert, Kilmacduagh and Emly. As for St David, a solid piece of evidence of his life's work is the cathedral at St Davids. The first surviving written life of him was by Rhigyfarch ap Sulien (died 1099), the Latin version of whose name is given in the text as Ricemarchus. It is impressive too that there exists a manuscript of St Jerome's Latin translation of the Psalms from Hebrew with notes by Rhigyfarch and illuminated by his brother Ieuan. But Rhigyfarch lacked detailed facts from St David's life. Some that he gives seem plausible, such as his making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. People did, both before and after the 6th century. Otherwise we learn memorably that St David was born in a thunderstorm on the Pembrokeshire cliffs. His mother, a nun called Non, was said to have been raped by his father, Sant, the King of Ceredigion. From an earlier source comes a nickname for St David of 'Aquaticus' from his habit of standing up to his chin in cold water. This is a familiar detail of Celtic ascesis. A question long after the saint's death was whether he would continue to be seen as the patron of Wales, with his episcopal see as the church power controlling South Wales. A turning point was a pilgrimage to St Davids by William the Conqueror in 1081 as he brought the kingdom of Dyfed under his overlordship. King Henry II twice visited St Davids at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, during which, according to a Norman verse chronicle, the battle-cry used by the invaders was 'St Dewi!' The English monarchy confirmed its good relations with the Celtic saint when Edward I and Queen Eleanor visited his shrine in 1284. But on St David's Day 1538, when relics of the saint were set out to be reverenced, William Barlow, the Bishop of St Davids, had them confiscated, triumphantly sending to Thomas Cromwell two parcels containing 'two heedes of sylver plate enclosing two rotten skulles stuffed with putrified clowtes; Item, two arme bones, and a worm eaten boke covered with sylver plate'.
BBC News
26-02-2025
- General
- BBC News
St David's Day 2025: Everything you need to know
Every year on 1 March, Welsh people around the world celebrate the country's patron saint - St day is a celebration of Welsh culture, traditional food and people also choose to wear one or both of Wales's national emblems - a daffodil and a concerts and parades are also held in St David's who was Saint David and how is the day traditionally celebrated? Keep reading to find out. Who was Saint David? St David - or Dewi Sant in Welsh - was born on the south-west coast of Wales, near to where the city of St Davids is don't actually know the exact year when he was born, but it is believed to be some time in between 462 and 515 are many stories about miracles happening around St of the famous stories is from when he was speaking to a large crowd and someone in the crowd shouted: "We won't be able to see or hear him".Then, the ground David stood on is said to have risen up so that he was standing on a hill, making it easier for everyone to see is also said that he lived for more than 100 years and died on Tuesday, 1 March saints are chosen as special protectors or guardians over all areas of Ireland and Scotland also have their own patron saint, to whom they dedicate a separate day. How do Welsh people celebrate St David's Day? The National St David's Day parade is held in the centre of Cardiff every year, with lots of exciting many children take part, wearing traditional Welsh clothing and performing traditional girls, this includes red and black plaid skirts, red shawls, tall black hats, or bonnets. Whereas boys often wear shirts with a waistcoat, neckerchiefs and the country, many towns and villages host their own parades and concerts, including a special dragon parade in the small city of St Davids in also eat traditional Welsh foods such as cawl (a lamb stew with potatoes and winter vegetables), bara brith (a rich fruit loaf made with tea) and laverbread - which isn't a bread but a traditional Welsh delicacy made of seaweed. Three facts about Saint David 1. He was a vegetarianSt David and his monks ploughed fields by hand and didn't eat is also believed that St David only ate leeks and drank water.2. His words live onHis last words to his followers before he died are thought to have been: "Be joyful, keep the faith and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do."The phrase gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd - "Do the little things in life" - is still a well-known phrase in Wales.3. He left his markIt is said that he went on a special religious journey to Jerusalem and brought back a stone with stone now sits on an altar in St David's Cathedral, which was built on the site of David's original monastery. How did the daffodil become the national symbol of Wales? While there is no accepted single answer for why the daffodil was adopted as the symbol of Wales and became its national flower, there are a number of competing theory is that around 1 March, when St David's Day is celebrated, we begin to see daffodils starting to it could also relate to an older traditional Welsh symbol - the leek. That's because the Welsh word for daffodil is cenhinen Bedr, which translates to "Peter's leek". Sadly, it's not known who the mysterious Peter was who gave his name to the these plants both bloom at this time of year, the daffodil might have been chosen as a slightly prettier and more pleasant smelling option than the leek? Why is the leek the national symbol of Wales? There are a few theories about why leeks have become the national symbol of has its roots in legend, in the year 1346, when the Prince of Wales defeated the French at the Battle of Crécy in northern archers are said to have fought bravely in a field of leeks, and as a reminder of their bravery and loyalty, the Welsh began to wear a leek in their caps every St David's legend also makes an appearance in William Shakespeare's play Henry V written in the 1500s, when a character from Wales wears a leek to show that he is from the Tudor period, monarchs asked their guards to wear leeks on their uniforms on St David's legend has it that when St David went into battle, he asked all of his army to wear leeks on their armour to keep them the 16th century, Henry VII's daughter, Princess Mary, is said to have been presented with a leek on St David's Day, and there are also records of payments for leeks in the accounts books of several Tudor the 17th and 18th centuries it was common practice for the king and members of his court to wear leeks on St David's Day.
