Pilgrim Ways

insistence on an independent Welsh church led to a stand-off with Canterbury. His failure to be elected bishop is reflected in the Holy Trinity Chapel statue which shows him with the bishop‟s mitre at his feet, rather than on his head. During the thirteenth century the Chapel of St.Thomas Becket and a Lady Chapel were constructed along with a new shrine on the north side of the presbytery.

In the middle of the fourteenth century Bishop Henry Gower carried out a further transformation, including the construction of the Bishop‟s Palace. The last significant addition was the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built in 1365 by Bishop Adam Houghton. During the centuries which followed frequent re-ordering and renewal occurred, especially the provision of flying buttresses and props to prevent the collapse of walls affected by poor foundations and subsidence.

The Reformation brought Bishop William Barlow to St.David‟s (bishop, 1536-48). A lackey of Thomas Cromwell, he sought to remove the episcopal centre from St.David‟s to Carmarthen and stripped the shrines of St.David and St.Justinian. Justinian was a sixthcentury martyr who went to the Isle of Ramsey, off the coast of South Wales, where he became a recluse, before being murdered. His feast is celebrated on December 5th. In 1538 Barlow wrote to Cromwell confirming that he had been to St.David‟s and removed two skulls, two arm bones and a “worm eaten book.” This may have been a copy of the Gospel of St.John written in St.David‟s own hand.

The cathedral‟s Catholic canons are thought to have hidden many other relics and in 1866, when Sir Giles Gilbert Scott ( and, later, Oldrid Scott) came to restore the cathedral, a recess containing a collection of bones was found in the Holy Trinity Chapel, directly behind the High Altar. Mortar had been poured over them. Early in the twentieth century Dean Williams had the bones, which he believed to be those of St.David and St.Justinian, placed in a reliquary.

St.David‟s is also home to the shrine of St.Caradog. Details of his life are found in Journey Through Wales (1188) by Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis). Gerald was born in Manorbier in 1146, educated in part in the cathedral school, and knew the stories of St.Caradog. In 1077 Caradog was sent from Breconshire to the court of the king of South Wales. Valued as a harpist, Caradog fell foul of the King and departed to Llandaff to become a monk. After a time in Gower he was ordained priest at St.David‟s. After living for a time on Ynys Ary, possibly Barry Island near Llanrahian in Pembrokeshire, he suffered at the hands of Norse raiders. He went to take charge of a cell founded by St.Ismael, now St.Issells, near Haroldston, where he finished his life. In accordance with his wishes he was taken for burial at St.David‟s and Gerald of Wales records that his body was “the cause of many miracles.”

Gerald investigated these miracles for Pope Innocent III and recorded that Caradog‟s body was incorrupt. His feast day is celebrated on April 13th.

During the Civil War the Parliamentary soldiers stripped the lead off the roof, wrecked what remained of the medieval library, destroyed the organ and bells, smashed the stained glass and tore up the brasses on the cathedral‟s tombs. For two centuries the east end of the cathedral was without a roof. It would not be until the end of the eighteenth century that restoration would commence. William Butterfield, John Nash and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott gradually accomplished the extraordinary feat of restoration. Remarkably, Scott managed to lay new foundations for the tower and to rebuild it without having to demolish the existing structure. Scott‟s son, Oldrid, oversaw the restoration of the Lady Chapel.