City in Denbighshire, Wales
St Asaph
Glasgow's patron saint founded this tiny Welsh city, which holds one of Britain's smallest ancient cathedrals and the book that helped save the Welsh language.
Key information
- County
- Denbighshire
- Nation
- Wales
- Known for
- A very small cathedral city on the River Elwy, tied to the first Welsh translation of the whole Bible
- Famous people
- William Morgan, Felicia Hemans, Henry Morton Stanley
About St Asaph
The Glasgow saint who founded a Welsh city
St Asaph's story begins with a man better known in Scotland. Kentigern, also called Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, is said to have founded a religious community here in the 6th century, after spending time in exile in Wales. When he returned north, he left the community in the care of a follower named Asaph. The city carries Asaph's name, while its Welsh name, Llanelwy, points to the river beside it. The setting is modest: a small town on a hill above the Elwy, a few miles from the north Wales coast. That small scale is part of its charm.
A cathedral you could nearly pocket
St Asaph Cathedral is the smallest ancient cathedral in Britain. It is a sturdy, compact building of grey stone on the hilltop, with a squat tower that looks more like a village church's than a bishop's. Its size didn't spare it. It was burned in 1282 during Edward I's wars in Wales, and rebuilt. Owain Glyndŵr's campaign then brought more fire damage in the early 1400s. In the 19th century the great Victorian architect George Gilbert Scott restored it, giving the building much of the look it has today. The cathedral still serves as the seat of the Bishop of St Asaph, and the diocese covers a large part of north-east Wales.
The Bible that held a language together
The cathedral's greatest claim to fame is a book. In 1588, William Morgan published the first complete translation of the Bible into Welsh. He later became Bishop of St Asaph, serving from 1601 until 1604. His translation gave Welsh a fixed written form for worship and daily life, and many historians credit it with helping the language survive when others in Britain faded. Because of Morgan, a church in a tiny city has an outsized place in Welsh cultural history. The Translators' Memorial in the cathedral grounds, put up in 1892, honours Morgan and the others who worked on the Welsh Bible.
A poet, an explorer and a workhouse
Felicia Hemans, one of the most widely read poets of the early 19th century, lived near St Asaph at Bronwylfa House. She wrote 'Casabianca', the poem that begins 'The boy stood on the burning deck', which generations of schoolchildren learned by heart. Henry Morton Stanley, later famed for finding David Livingstone in Africa, had a harder link with the city. Born in nearby Denbigh as John Rowlands, he spent part of his childhood in the St Asaph workhouse before reinventing himself abroad. Two very different lives, both shaped by the same small stretch of the Elwy valley.
The city that finally got the label
For centuries St Asaph was a city in everything but name, thanks to its cathedral and its bishop. Official city status finally arrived in 2012, when it was chosen as part of the celebrations for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The news delighted locals, and St Asaph is now proudly counted among Britain's smallest cities. It is a place where the high street, the cathedral and the river are all within a short walk of each other. Visitors tend to come for the cathedral and the Welsh Bible connection, then stay for the lanes and the green hills around the Elwy.
Related articles
The Welsh Language
Published
Welsh counts in twenties, bends its first letters like putty and was kept alive by a 1588 Bible. Today it is being taught back into a new generation.