All Saints' Day At St. David's. By Uncle Monty.

All Saints' Day At St. David's.
By Uncle Monty.

Welsh Photos By Alex Albion.
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Listed as the smallest city at the Principality of Wales,

St. David’s is not only a truly mediaeval Welsh cathedral

city but it also bears the name of the Patron Saint of

Wales. March 1st is the Feast Day of St. David’s.

While on this day as I write - November 1st -

it is All Saints’ Day.
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Colours of brick red, light yellow, and deep brown autumn

leaves, or fall foliage, was ablaze all across West Wales at

where, for the past week and abit, I have been on the Celtic

Sea at monastic Caldey Island; taking a seal safari to see and

photograph the grey seal habitats off St. Margaret’s Island;

and later watching glimpses elsewhere of dolphins at Ramsey

Island. And thus, having now also journeyed across much of

the westward enclaves of the royal Welsh principality, I finally

landed-up here at tiny Dinas Tyddewi or St. David’s City.
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Tomb of Welsh Mediaeval Knight At St. David's.

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Oddly enough, I didn’t see mention anywhere of St.

David’s Day at St. David’s!! Maybe I have missed some-

thing, but I didn’t even see a statue to the Patron Saint

of Wales that St. David so historically represents. Again,

I may have missed something. Even the literature and

guidebook I read about St. David's city contained no

mention of a statue to his sainthood and patronage of

Wales. Perhaps, I wasn’t reading the right stuff or not

looking in the right place to find a statue or memorial to

the renowned Welsh saint and archbishop called St. David

in the city so named after his saintly name. Admittedly,

St. David's relics are enshrined here and thus such is

considered the holiest site in all of Wales. During the

Middle Ages, pilgrimages here carried much religious

significance due to the saint's relics, especially

for the Welsh folk and their own Cymru.

http://sucs.org/~rhys/stdavid.html

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All Saints Day is, of course, the day in which all the

Christian Saints are remembered and such is then

followed the next day by All Souls’ Day, Nov. 2nd.

http://www.churchyear.net/allsaints.html

www.churchyear.net/allsouls.html
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View of the ruins of the Bishop's Palace at St. David's.

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A three mile stroll around the whole of St. David’s city

sums up the length that one can actually walk at the city’s

maximum parameter. In Welsh one can read all about this:

“Tyddewi – Ar droed yn y ddinas. 3 milltir. Mae dinas leiaf

Prydain yn lle hudolus ac mea’r daith gylch hon yn eich

tywys o amgylch ei huchafbwntiau. Mae’r eglwys gadeiriol

drawiadol, a Llys yr Esgob o’r 14eg ganrif, ynghudd yn y

cwm – galwch i mewn i olrhain yr eglwys gadeiriol o’r

1100au hyd heddiw.” It goes on to further say in English

that the small crag above the valley here is called Clegyr

Boia, an outcrop of old volcanic rock. It is said to have been a

stronghold of St. David’s adversary Boia, an Irish chieftain.

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Eglwys Gadeiriol Twddewi - St. David's Cathedral.

http://www.stdavidscathedral.org.uk/

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The focal point, the historic depth and the religious

standing of St. David’s is, of course, the Cathedral itself

that marks the local Welsh Anglican diocese of which it is

one of six such dioceses under the Archepiscopal See

of The Province of the Church in Wales:

Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru The Church in Wales

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Without the cathedral, this tiny city would be obviously

dead and of little interest to the modern pilgrim or an

independent travellor much like me. Two of my friends

tell me of how they loved St. David’s, but I cannot say

I loved the place per se. There is so little else here to

attract my interest other than again the cathedral

itself as an affirming Anglican myself.

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I was struck at first that such a small place should have such a

large cathedral with a population of less than 1,600 residents. The

answer, clearly, is St. David as the patron saint of Wales. That’s what

makes the city an important place to visit due entirely to him!! Thus,

naturally, the cathedral goes hand-in-hand with St. David's city.

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Inside St. David's Mediaeval Cathedral.

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Canvas Painting of Welsh Knight at Cathedral.

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14th Century Cathedral Slab Floor, 1328-1347.

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I have now arrive back at homebase very late this

evening from West Wales. I have now written briefly

about "All Saints' Day at St. David's." In the meantime,

my other planned story "From The Celtic Sea At

Caldey Island," will appear later this week after

now recording my encounters first of St. David's.

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Faithfully, Uncle Monty.

All Saints' Day, 2oo9.
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Secular Reality Check At St. David's.

By Uncle Monty.

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Trying to find a guesthouse that didn’t want to charge you

an arm and leg for overnight accommodation, needed all

the patience of a saint at St. David's, so I'm sorry to say!! At

one place, when I politely asked the owner of one guesthouse

if he could do better on his price, he simply yelled “NO” at me
and suddenly turned on his heels and then literally slammed

the door right in my face. He also promptly switched off

the outside porch lights so that I couldn’t hardly see the

steep steps I needed to take ... What a cad, he was?

“Welcome then to St. David’s ...”

I said sarcastically to myself.

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I was also told to go to the local City Inn, since it was the

cheapest in town! I was in for a quick rude awakening

by the bad attitude of the two cold guyz running the

City Inn. They were as cold as ice. The price for an

overnight bed was the most expensive and not the

cheapest by far. I left the City Inn at St. David's

with utter disgust at the price and the lousey yobz

running it of what seemed to me to be little more

than a frigid and impersonal tourist trap ...

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Luckily, a little later, I found Dylan O. Richards’ Pen-Albro

B+B on Goat Street at St. David’s. Not only did he charge a

fair price for a clean bed, but the morning Welsh breakfast

was so big I asked him to please put what I couldn’t eat in

a “doggy bag” so that I could eat it later for lunch. Dylan

Richards was a nice old bloke who ran his comfy B+B in

his own home with plenty of books and CD's to entertain

his welcomed guests. Plus, he had free internet access -

setup by his son Andrew - that was the first place I

found with internet access while travelling the whole

of West Wales since before arriving at Caldey

Island via the Celtic Sea prior to St. David's ...

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On the whole, I found the hotel and guesthouse owners at

St. David's to be a greedy bunch of rip-off artists. The ex-

ception by far was the local gentlemen Dylan O. Richards!

Bravo, dear sir ...

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Uncle Monty At Caldey Island's Statue of its own

Patron Saint Called St. Samson, c. 485 - c. 565.

http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/samson.html

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(Click on any image to Enlarge)

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