Welcome to the smallest cathedral

Main image:

Interior of St Asaph cathedral. Top right: Ian Rush. Bottom right: image of St Asaph town

As part of our series on towns where Sanlam has offices, we’ve taken a closer look at historic St Asaph

The picturesque city of St Asaph in north Wales is home to the smallest cathedral in Britain but despite its size, it has played an important part in the religion and history of the region over the centuries. It has been an important ecclesiastical centre since AD560, when the cathedral was founded by Scottish saint Kentigern, who left his disciple Asaph in charge when he returned to Scotland.

The city stands in the Vale of Clwyd on the River Elwy and has found itself in the path of invading armies over the centuries. The cathedral was twice destroyed by fire and has an often-violent history. It was destroyed by the soldiers of Henry III in 1245 and again by the armies of Edward I in 1282. It was rebuilt between 1284 and 1381, only to be burned by Owen Glyndwr’s Welsh troops in 1402. Then, in 1715, the tower was completely demolished in a fierce storm.

City status

As the seat of a medieval cathedral St Asaph was historically considered a city and was referred to as such in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. But the government clarified that St Asaph was actually the only one of the 22 ancient cathedral dioceses in England and Wales not to have been awarded city status. The town applied for the status in 2000 (for the Millennium) and 2002 (the Queen’s Golden Jubilee) but was unsuccessful. It was finally given city status in 2012 for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

St Asaph plays an important part in the cultural life of Wales. At its secondary school Ysgol Glan Clwyd all lessons (except English) are taught in Welsh and the city hosts the North Wales International Music Festival each year. The cathedral is home to: ‘The Naked Christ’, a thoughtprovoking sculpture by Michelle Coxon; the Spanish Madonna, said to come from the Spanish Armada; and the William Morgan bible, which was the first bible to be translated into Welsh.

Some surprising characters spent their early years in St Asaph, including Ian Rush, Liverpool Football Club’s all-time leading scorer, who was born there in 1961. Journalist and explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley was raised in the Union Workhouse in St Asaph and is perhaps best-known for his search for the missionary and explorer David Livingstone, whom he greeted with the famous line: “Dr Livingstone, I presume.” The workhouse later became the HM Stanley Hospital and although now closed it remains the headquarters of the Welsh ambulance service.

Further back

It is thought that there were people living in the area long before the cathedral was established and some historians believe it may stand on the site of the Roman fort of Varae.

The earliest inhabitants of the Vale of Elwy lived at the nearby Palaeolithic site of Bontnewydd, which was excavated in 1978. In 1981, teeth and part of a jawbone were excavated and dated to 225,000 years ago. They are thought to have belonged to a group of Neanderthals who hunted game in the Vale of Elwy and the area is now considered of international importance. In 2016, Sanlam’s North Wales office relocated to St Asaph Business Park after more than 30 years in the nearby seaside town of Rhyl. n Photos: Alamy

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