St Davids

Tradition states that David was born to Saint Non at what is now St Non's, just to the south of the city, in about AD 500. It is said that he was baptised at Porthclais, now the city's port, and was brought up by his mother at Llanon. St David may also have been educated at Ty Gwyn, Whitesands, by St Paulinus.

In the 6th century, David founded a monastery and church at Glyn Rhosyn (Rose Vale) on the banks of the River Alun. The area was originally known in the Welsh language as Mynyw and to the Romans as Meneva or Menevia. The monastic brotherhood that David founded was very strict — besides praying and celebrating masses, they cultivated the land and carried out many crafts, including beekeeping, in order to feed themselves and the many pilgrims and travellers who needed lodgings. They also fed and clothed the poor and needy.[7]

The settlement that grew up around the monastery was called Tyddewi meaning "David's house". In 519 the archbishopric of Caerleon in the county of Monmouth was transferred to Mynyw, which was renamed "St Davids" in honour of the archbishop and saint by whom the transfer was accomplished.[8] The original cathedral built on the site was often plundered by the Vikings and was finally burnt and destroyed in 1087. The present cathedral was built by the Normans and contained many relics, including the remains of St David. It was visited by many pilgrims, many of whom were nobles and kings, including William the Conqueror in 1077, Henry II in 1171, and Edward I and Queen Eleanor in 1284.[8] Pope Calixtus II decreed that two pilgrimages to St Davids were equivalent to one to Rome ("Roma semel quantum dat bis Menevia tantum"). This allowed a vast income to be raised from visiting pilgrims in the Middle Ages.[9] Pilgrimages later fell out of favour due to practices such as the selling of indulgences, and the income from them faded away. By the 19th century, the city of St Davids was isolated and neglected, as described in the Penny Cyclopaedia:[8]

At present its appearance is that of a poor village, the houses, excepting those of the clergy, being in a ruinous state. The locality is lonely, and the neighbouring district wild and unimproved; but it is still an interesting place as the seat of a large episcopal see, with a fine cathedral and the remains of other magnificent religious edifices.

Since then, better transport and the advent of tourism have helped the city prosper again. Next to the cathedral, the 13th-century Bishop's Palace is a ruin maintained by Cadw and open to visitors. The city was once a marcher borough, within which lay the hundred of Dewisland. In 1603, the antiquarian George Owen described it as one of five Pembrokeshire boroughs overseen by a portreeve.[10]

The community council area sits at the southern end of the Irish Sea on a peninsula, between Cardigan Bay, St George's Channel and St Brides Bay. It covers not just the mainland area, but also several islands off the coast, of which Ramsey Island is the largest and the only one inhabited, separated by the Ramsey Sound. The most westerly mainland point of Wales is at Pen Dal-aderyn. To the north lie Whitesands Bay and St Davids Head, which are locally notable landscape features. The community includes the former chapelries at St Justinian and Gwrhyd.[11] The mainland contains much area used for farming, but contains very small scattered residences and several campsites.

St Davids Lifeboat Station, at St Justinian, has saved an estimated 360 people since the first lifeboat was located there in 1869; four lifeboatmen have died while saving others.[12] The Irish Sea includes a large number of offshore rocks and islands and is notorious for strong tides.[13] The entire coastline around St Davids forms part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Saint Non's Well overlooks the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and St Brides Bay. St David's Airfield, although named after the city when opened in 1943,[14] is in the neighbouring community of Solva. The highest point is Carn Llidi at 181 metres (594 ft).

There are several isolated hamlets in the community:

• Berea
• Caerfarchell
• Carnhedryn
• Fachelich/Vachelich[15]
• Llandruidion
• Rhodiad-y-brenin
• Treleddyd-fawr
• Trelerw
• Tretio

Several islands and islets lie within a few miles from the coast. These are administratively within St Davids:

• Ramsey Island, also known as Ynys Dewi, is the largest.
• Carreg Yr Esgob
• Carreg Fran
• Ynys Eilun
• Ynys Bery

The islands below are part of the Bishop And Clerks grouping, and were included in 1987:[16]

• Carreg Rhoson
• Carreg Rhoson East Island
• Carreg-trai
• Cribog
• Daufraich
• Llechau-isaf
• Llechau-uchaf
• Maen Daufraich
• Maen Rhoson
• Moelyn
• North Bishop
• South Bishop also known as Em-sger, is the furthest away from Pen Dal-aderyn at 4 miles.

In the 16th century a town was recognised as a city by the English Crown if it had a diocesan cathedral within its limits along with a royal charter or borough privileges, but this link was abolished in 1888,[17] and amid prior borough reorganisation (see Governance below),[18] St Davids lost the right to call itself a city. In 1991 St Davids town council proposed that a case for city status, which the residents had long considered it to have anyway, should be promoted in connection with the 40th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and in 1992 the Home Office agreed to refer the matter to Buckingham Palace. In 1994, at the Queen's request, St Davids was again granted city status along with the Northern Irish town of Armagh, "in recognition of their important Christian heritage and their status as cities in the last century".[17] The letters patent conferring city status were formally presented by the Queen in a ceremony at St Davids Cathedral on 1 June 1995.[19]

The award of city status is typically granted to a local authority,[20] whose administrative area is then considered to be the formal borders of the city. By this definition, the whole community area of St Davids and the Cathedral Close, including the settlement of St Davids, its surrounding rural area, and islands off the coast, is considered to be within the city. St Davids contains the lowest population of all the cities of the UK, and has the smallest urban area, at 0.23 sq mi (0.60 km²). However, with the formal city area defined by its community council extent of 17.93 sq mi (46.4 km²), this sizeable expanse including offshore islands mean that several UK cities are smaller in area, with the City of London being the smallest at 1.12 sq mi (2.9 km²). In Wales, St Davids is the third smallest after the community areas of St Asaph with 2.49 sq mi (6.4 km²) and Bangor with 2.79 sq mi (7.2 km²).

St Davids became a borough in 1115,[21] when Bernard, the first Norman Bishop of St Davids, was granted a charter by Henry I designating the lands of Dewisland as a Marcher Lordship.[22]

This gave Bernard wide-reaching powers over this realm, with his headquarters remaining initially at St Davids. However, subsequent Marcher Bishops came to base the administration of Dewisland, including the exchequer, chancery and court, in Llawhaden by the 13th century.[23][22] King Henry VIII then passed the Laws in Wales Acts, which in 1535 and 1542 abolished the status of Marcher Lordships. Dewisland was merged with the adjacent Lordship of Kemes and the surrounding Lordship of Pembroke to form Pembrokeshire, of which Dewisland became a hundred. In 1835 a report from government commissioners investigating municipal corporations determined:

THE city and parish of St. David's is situate in the manor of Dewisland. The Bishop of St. David's is Lord of the Manor; and it appears that an officer, called the Mayor, is annually appointed by the steward, whose duty is to collect certain chief rents to the bishop. The mayor assumes to take certain small tolls by virtue of his office: his right to do this is disputed, but the tolls being very trifling, are frequently paid. The mayor is merely an officer of the Manor Court. A belief exists amongst some of the inhabitants that the city was once a corporation; but there are no burgesses, charter, or other vestige of municipal institutions. The belief has probably arisen from the lord's officer being called a mayor.[24][25]

Under this summary, the borough was considered within the report as "municipal in name only", and non-parliamentary.[26] Any remaining legalities pertaining to the city were removed in 1886, when these were abolished by the Municipal Corporations Act 1883, with its corporation deemed to be long extinct, and the very small population (1,025 residents in 1835)[26] not helping its cause in an age where boroughs with unrepresentative populations were being singled out for reform. This act, in turn, appears to have caused the loss of city status, as there was no corporate body available to petition for a renewal of its charter.[18] The subsequent renewal of the status in 1995 (see City Status above) and the reasons then given conclude that the status was in place until 1886.

The borough lay across two parishes, and by the time of the creation of registration districts in 1837 these were:[27][28] the Cathedral Close of St. David's – the close surrounding the cathedral and associated church buildings; and St Davids – the rest of the city and rural areas. These were split from the church into civil parishes during 1866, electing secular councillors from 1895, converted to Welsh community administrative areas in 1974, and merged in 1987[5] to form the present day St Davids and the Cathedral Close.

St Davids City Council is the community council body, which has twelve councillors.[29] The City Council employs one City Clerk and one Financial Officer.[29] In June 2020 the council elected its first Sikh mayor, Councillor Bira Sehmi, believed also to be the first Sikh mayor in Wales.[30]

The parishes were part of Haverfordwest rural sanitary district, then Haverfordwest rural district from 1894 until 1974, when they were changed into communities and placed in Preseli district.[31] Preseli was abolished in 1996 under further local government reform and the city presently comes under Pembrokeshire County Council for all principal government services.

The electoral ward of St Davids elects a county councillor to Pembrokeshire County Council.

Ysgol Dewi Sant (St David's School) is the local secondary school covering years 7–13 (aged 11–18).[37] Ysgol Bro Dewi (Dewisland School) is a Voluntary Controlled Primary School, with pupils from Reception to Year 6.

The following were born in St Davids:

• Asser (died c. 909), a monk at St Davids who was mentor to King Alfred the Great and wrote his biography[38]
• William Barlow (died 1625), an expert on magnetism and Anglican cleric whose father, also William Barlow, served as bishop in 1536–1548.[39]
• Kieran Evans (born 1969), a film director and screenwriter[40]
• Wilfrith Green (1872–1937), a brigadier-general who served in the British and Indian armies
• Henry Hicks (1837–1899), a surgeon and geologist who practised there from 1862 until 1871[41]
• Jasmine Joyce (born 1995), a player for Wales women's national rugby union sevens and the British women's sevens team at the 2016 Summer Olympics[42]
• Rowland Phillips (born 1965), a rugby union player for Wales and later rugby league for Wales and Great Britain[43]
• Thomas Tomkins (1572–1656), a musician and composer[44]
• Ian Walsh (born 1958), a Wales national association football player[45]

St Davids is twinned with:[46]

• Naas, Ireland
• Orléat, France
• Matsieng, Lesotho

• Saint David's Day
• Chapel of St Non
• Annales Cambriae
• Bishop of St Davids
• Diocese of St Davids
• City status in the United Kingdom
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Menevia

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bonney, Thomas George (1901). "Hicks, Henry". Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.

• Brian Brendan O'Malley, compiler (1985), A Pilgrim's Manual: St Davids. Marlborough: Paulinus Press ISBN 0-907740-13-8

Wikimedia Commons has media related to St David's.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for St Davids.

• St Davids City Council
• St Davids at www.visitpembrokeshire.com (official council tourism website)
• Further historical, genealogical and ecclesiastical information and sources on GENUKI
• St Davids at Curlie