St Woolos Cathedral, Newport

A true pilgrim destination that perhaps contains the grave of its patron saint, a 6th-century king, this cathedral is visited by the St Thomas Way

Highlights

• Cathedral: shrine of St Gwynllyw/Woolos, images of saints
• Bassaleg: church near the possible grave of St Gwladys

St Woolos is the English name for St Gwynllyw, who built the first church here around 500. He lived with his wife St Gwladys. These two saints had impeccable Celtic credentials: they used to bathe naked in the nearby river every night of the year. St Gwynllyw’s grave is probably still here, somewhere in the Galilee Chapel.

The cathedral is a lovely, unexpectedly old structure in the middle of busy Newport, seat of the diocese of Monmouth. What it lacks in size is more than compensated by its venerable history, containing the oldest fabric of any Welsh cathedral. St Gwynllyw’s original church was wooden, but it was rebuilt in stone to house his shrine soon after the year 800. Some of the Galilee Chapel walls are thought to date from this 9th-century building. The chapel now forms the entrance to the main cathedral, and is also called the St Mary Chapel. It contains a large Norman font.

St Gwynllyw’s grave is thought to be somewhere in the chapel. There is an ancient-looking stone slab with a large crack along one end, in front of the font, that looked promising. A priest who happened to be on site when I visited said it was possibly linked to the saint’s grave. However, others in the cathedral are less sure, and the stone has been left unadorned and unmarked as a shrine.

The saint was originally a king, a fierce warrior whose conversion to Christianity was so complete he abdicated and lived a hermit-like existence on the site of the current cathedral. He and St Gwladys used to walk naked all the way from their church to the River Usk each night to bathe. It is hard to imagine today, given the cathedral’s urban setting and the busy shopping streets heading down towards the river. It would have been nippy on the way back in winter, half a mile uphill at least. The night-time setting of this and many similar accounts of devotional bathing implies that the bathers went naked, and early texts occasionally refer to that explicitly. But it also indicates a degree of discretion too.

Devotional bathing is something of a Celtic specialism, with around 40 early saints of Britain and Ireland said to have practised this chilly discipline. The son of these two bathers is the famous missionary St Cadoc, who founded numerous churches in South Wales. A Victorian or later window in the south aisle depicts the three saints alongside each other. Their surviving Lives were written in the 12th century, with confusing and contradictory details. For example, one claims that their planned marriage was the subject of a pitched battle involving King Arthur; the other says they tied the knot peacefully. The two are remembered together on 29 March.

St Cadoc was above all else fired with missionary zeal, the cold water bathing of his family perhaps part of a wider campaign to impress the local folk that Christians meant business. He was an advocate for monasticism too, eventually persuading his parents to live apart. St Gwladys went to live at a hermitage on the west side of the city, at a place called Bassaleg. She continued her devotional bathing in the Ebbw River.

There is still a church at Bassaleg, dating from Norman times. St Gwladys might have been buried nearby: a former chapel near the church was demolished in the 19th century, perhaps built where her shrine once stood. The current church is dedicated to St Basil – which might actually refer to St Gwladys’ early building by a curious twist of wordplay. The name Bassaleg is based on the Latin word ‘basilica’, which means an important early church. Gelligaer, 11 miles away, has another claim to be the site of her shrine.

Directions

St Woolos Cathedral, Stow Hill, Newport NP20 4EA‍

www.newportcathedral.org.uk‍

W3W: fork.formed.famed

GPS: 51.5830N 2.9991W cathedral

W3W: unhelpful.eclipses.dignitary

GPS: 51.5783N 3.0444W Bassaleg

The cathedral is near the centre of Newport on Stow Hill, open daily from 8am. The church in Bassaleg is on Caerphilly Road, which is only accessible from the A468, and not from the A467 as many maps suggest. Its postcode is NP10 8LD. The church was open when I visited on a Saturday, perhaps because it was in a lull between three wedding services.

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