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St Asaph (; St Asaph—John Wells's phonetic blog , 15 March 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2012 "church on the Elwy") is a cathedral city BBC News—St Asaph in north Wales named Diamond Jubilee city Retrieved 14 March 2012 and community on the River Elwy in Denbighshire, Wales. At the 2021 census the community had a population of 3,485, making it the second-smallest city in the United Kingdom in terms of population. It was historically in Flintshire.
The city of St Asaph is surrounded by countryside and views of the Vale of Clwyd. It is situated close to a number of towns including Denbigh, Rhuddlan, Rhyl, Holywell and Abergele.
Later some historians postulate that the Roman fort of Varae sat on the site of the cathedral. However, the city is believed to have developed around a sixth-century Celtic monastery founded by Saint Kentigern, and is now home to the small 14th century St Asaph Cathedral. This is dedicated to Saint Asaph (also spelt in Welsh as Asaff), its second bishop.
The cathedral has had a chequered history. In the 13th century, the troops of Edward I of England burnt the cathedral almost to the ground, and in 1402 Owain Glyndŵr's troops went on the rampage, causing severe damage to the furnishings and fittings. Two hundred and fifty years later, during the Commonwealth, the building was used to house farm animals: pigs, cattle and horses.T. W. Pritchard St Asaph Cathedral Guidebooks
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As the seat of a medieval cathedral and diocese, St Asaph was historically regarded as a city, and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica refers to it as a city on that basis; however the UK government clarified that St Asaph was previously the only one of the twenty two ancient cathedral dioceses in England and Wales (pre-Reformation) not to have been awarded city status. The town applied for the status in competitions held by the British government in 2000 (for the Millennium) and 2002 (Queen's Golden Jubilee) but was unsuccessful. In 2012 it again competed for city status during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It was announced on 14 March 2012 that the application was successful, and city status was to be bestowed upon St Asaph alongside Chelmsford and Perth. The status was formally granted by letters patent dated 1 June 2012.
The award of city status is typically granted to a local authority, whose administrative area is then considered to be the formal borders of the city. By this definition, the whole community area of St Asaph is considered to be the extent of the city, including its urban and rural areas. St Asaph contains the second lowest population of all the cities of the UK, and has the second smallest urban area of , both measures behind St Davids which has 1,841 residents and covers . However, with the formal city sizing defined by its community council area of , two other UK cities are smaller than St Asaph by boundary: the City of London smallest at and Wells second with . In Wales, St Asaph is the smallest by council area, with Bangor a close second at .
The past few decades have seen the local economy in St Asaph thrive, first with the opening of the A55 road in 1970, which took east–west traffic away from the city, and, more recently, with a business park being built, attracting investment from home and overseas.
The crowded roads in St Asaph have been a hot political issue for many years. In recent years, increasing volumes of traffic on the A525, St Asaph High Street, which links A55 with the Clwyd Valley, Denbigh and Ruthin, have led to severe congestion in the city. This congestion is having a detrimental effect on the city, and residents have repeatedly called for a bypass to take this north–south road and its traffic away from the city, but the National Assembly for Wales rejected these calls in 2004, presenting a further setback for residents campaigning on the issue.
St Asaph is now home to Ysgol Glan Clwyd, a Welsh medium secondary school that opened in Rhyl in 1956 and moved to St Asaph in 1969. It was the first Welsh medium secondary school in Wales.
An original copy of the Welsh Bible is kept on public display in St Asaph Cathedral. It was used at the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969.
Other annual events in the city include the increasingly popular Woodfest Wales crafts festival in June, the Beat the Bounds charity walk in July and the Gala Day in August.
In 1536, the new county of Denbighshire was created under the Laws in Wales Act 1535, comprising the old lordship of Denbighland plus other "lordships, townships, parishes, commotes and cantreds", one of which was "Saint Tasse", being St Asaph. Six years later, in 1542, St Asaph was transferred instead to Flintshire, with the act of parliament which transferred it noting that it had "...of old time been reputed accepted and taken as part and parcel of the county of Flint...".
The parish of St Asaph covered a large rural area as well as the settlement itself, and straddled the hundred of Isdulas in Denbighshire and the hundred of Rhuddlan in Flintshire. It was subdivided into 13 townships:
Meriadog and Wigfair were in Denbighshire, the rest of the parish was in Flintshire. The cathedral, the parish church of St Kentigern, and the core of the urban area were in the Brynpolyn township. An ecclesiastical parish of Bodelwyddan was created in 1860 covering the Bodelwyddan, Pengwern and Faenol townships, but it remained part of the civil parish of St Asaph. Another ecclesiastical parish, called Cefn Meiriadog, was created in 1865 covering the two Denbighshire townships of the civil parish.
The Local Government Act 1894 directed that civil parishes could no longer straddle county boundaries. The two Denbighshire townships of Meriadog and Wigfair were therefore together made a new civil parish called Cefn in 1895. The following year, the reduced parish of St Asaph within Flintshire ceded an area to Rhuddlan, and the remainder was split into three civil parishes: Bodelwyddan, Waen and a much reduced St Asaph parish.
St Asaph was then administered as a rural parish with a parish council within the St Asaph Rural District of Flintshire until 1974. In that year, the parish of St Asaph was converted into a community in the new borough of Rhuddlan and county of Clwyd. The upper tiers of local government were reorganised again in 1996, when St Asaph was included in the modern Denbighshire.
Another well-known individual, Geoffrey of Monmouth, served as Lord Bishop of St Asaph from 1152 to 1155; however, due to war and unrest in Wales at the time, he probably never set foot in his see.
The hospital in the city (formerly the St Asaph Union Workhouse) was named H.M. Stanley Hospital in honour of Sir Henry Morton Stanley; it closed in 2012. The city's Hospice care was named after Saint Kentigern.
Transport
St Asaph is served by regular buses to Denbigh, Rhuddlan and Rhyl. The city was once served by a station on the Vale of Clwyd Railway line, which closed in the 1960s. However, the station remains and the site is now in use as a builders yard. The nearest stations are now in Rhyl and Pensarn. The city is also close to the heritage railways at Llangollen and Bala Lake in the town of Bala.
Notable people
A number of famous people have strong links to St Asaph, having been born, raised, lived, worked or died in the city. These include:
Sport
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External links
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