A Thumbnail History

It was probably during the late 470s that the soldier-prince Gwynllyw found his vocation to the tough life of a Celtic monk, and he built his cell with its small enclosure here, right on top of Stow Hill. According to well attested tradition, he died at the end of March in the year 500AD, but he was held in such honour that a wooden church was at once built over the site of his grave.

In fact the stories that surround him make it clear that as a young man he was both a pirate and, frankly, a thug - indeed there are some very unflattering accounts of his behaviour, both in his Vitae and those of his famous son Cadoc. So his conversion from aristocratic paganism came not a moment too soon!

This became an important place of pilgrimage, together with its healing spring (the Ffynon Gwynllyw), and indeed, when the wooden church was burned down in one of the many Viking raids, it was rebuilt in the 9th century in stone. Much of this actually remains as the present Galilee Chapel at the West end of the Cathedral.