Hereford Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin and St Ethelbert the King‍

Hereford Cathedral is visited by the St Thomas Way, One Day Walks, and the Three Choirs Way‍

Highlights

• ‍‍Icon shrine of St Ethelbert
• Shrine and relic of St Thomas of Hereford

Hereford is as holy as any cathedral can be, graced by the presence of two elegant but very different shrines to its saints. St Ethelbert is the cathedral’s patron, a Saxon king, while St Thomas of Hereford was a bishop who died in the 13th century.

Beyond the high altar, at the entrance to the Lady Chapel, is a modern memorial to the earlier of the two saints. Miracles at St Ethelbert’s tomb made Hereford famous as a place of pilgrimage. The first stone church was built here over his grave in about 830. It remained at the heart of the cathedral until the Reformation.

A modern shrine to the saint was introduced in 2007. It took me a while to identify, only because it is so different from any other shrine in this guide. It consists of an icon screen wrapped around the central pillar. Obvious when you know.

The icons are beautifully drawn in traditional Orthodox style on wooden boards. They depict scenes from the life of the young king, who was killed at the age of just 15 on the orders of his rival, King Offa. The scene of his death is near Marden, 4 miles north of Hereford (overleaf).

St Ethelbert’s modern shrine is located more or less where the original stood. However, the icon screen is in the middle of a thoroughfare, with nowhere to linger or light candles nearby.

St Thomas of Hereford

Hereford’s other saintly grave was added in 1287. St Thomas of Hereford was the city’s bishop, who died while travelling to Rome. He was greatly revered after his death and buried in the north transept, where his reconstructed shrine is now located. He was canonised in 1320, and his tomb became a formal shrine.

St Thomas’s body was then moved from the north transept in 1349 to rest alongside St Ethelbert in the Lady Chapel. When the reformers destroyed the new shrine, they forgot about his original stone memorial. Their oversight has allowed the cathedral to restore this first tomb, which partly explains why it feels so authentic. It has a canopy structure above the stone base, incorporating an icon of St Thomas and other saints linked to the cathedral.

When I visited, the shrine even contained a small relic of St Thomas himself, sitting on top of the stone base on a glass cylinder. A notice said the relic was on loan from Stonyhurst College in Lancashire – a Catholic school.

So this shrine is much more than a historical recreation: it is in use again. There is a huge candle stand alongside that was nearly full when I visited, just an hour after opening. A line of people queued up to light their own candles.

There is plenty of space to stop and pray around the shrine, including a kneeler. Some modern banners on either side lighten the experience, giving this saint’s relic a human face and explaining why he is remembered.

St Thomas is sometimes called by his original surname, Cantilupe. He was a strong-willed churchman, once whipping the local landowner Lord Clifford in front of the high altar for raiding cattle. He died while visiting the Pope in order to resolve an argument with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had excommunicated him in a dispute over jurisdiction.

Both of Hereford’s saints, therefore, have a strong local connection, and the cathedral has worked wonders in its efforts to restore their place in worship. It has published a leaflet called Celebrating the Saints, which offers a mini-pilgrimage around the building, incorporating five saints.

Two of them are, of course, St Ethelbert and St Thomas. Two others are founding Christian figures: St John the Baptist, patron of the cathedral whose statue is in the crypt, and the Blessed Virgin, remembered in the Lady Chapel. The fifth ‘saint’ is Thomas Traherne, a 17th-century parish priest and poet, remembered by beautiful stained-glass windows in the Audley Chapel, on the right in the Lady Chapel.

The Mappa Mundi at Hereford Cathedral

The cathedral is an architectural showcase, dating from Norman times onwards. It also houses the Mappa Mundi, one of the most famous documents in England. This map is basically a miniature guide to holy places. It was designed to be spiritually accurate rather than geographically correct, the world squeezed into a 13th-century sense of our place in the divine order of creation.

Jerusalem, for example, is in the centre, and east is at the top of the map rather than north. The Garden of Eden is the far eastern point, an earthly paradise on a separate and circular island. The cathedral exhibition also includes the Hereford Gospels, an 8th-century illuminated manuscript with Celtic touches. It is part of the cathedral’s famous chained library, the world’s largest, which also displays a casket once used to hold St Thomas Becket’s relic.

The cathedral celebrates St Ethelbert on 20 May and St Thomas on three dates: 25 August (death), 2 October (canonisation), and 25 October (translation of relics). Among the other routes listed, it is also on the Golden Valley Pilgrim Way.

There is a holy well a short walk east of the cathedral. St Ethelbert’s coffin was rested here briefly during his translation to the cathedral from Marden, and a holy well appeared. It was dedicated to the saint and used to cure eye infections and ulcers but is now dry.

Directions

Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin and St Ethelbert the King‍

Cathedral Close, Hereford HR1 2NG

www.herefordcathedral.org

W3W: delay.sits.fake

GPS: 52.0543N 2.7167W cathedral

W3W: ties.stick.still

GPS: 52.0534N 2.7142W well (dry)‍

The cathedral is open daily from 9:15am until evensong (daily at 5:30pm apart from Sun 3:30pm). The Mappa Mundi exhibition is open Mon–Sat, times are April–Oct 10am–5pm, Nov–Mar 10am–4pm, last entry 30 minutes before closing. The cathedral does not charge for entry at the time of research. Tickets are needed to see the Mappa Mundi, £6 adults, £5 concessions, £8–£14 family depending on numbers.