St. Asaph

St. Asaph, cathedral village, Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych) county, historic county of Flintshire (Sir Fflint), northern Wales. It stands between the Rivers Clwyd and Elwy, from which its Welsh name derives.

Asaph, the Celtic ecclesiastic to whom the cathedral is dedicated, was bishop there in the 6th century. The original wooden structure, destroyed by the English in the 13th century, was rebuilt but subsequently extensively damaged about 1402 by the army of the Welsh rebel Owain Glyn Dŵr. The present cathedral was begun about 1480, completed by 1770, and restored in the 19th century. It is plain and cruciform with a square tower. Its library of almost 2,000 volumes, some rare, contains the Welsh translation of the Bible by Bishop William Morgan. The small, irregularly built village also has the remains of a Perpendicular Gothic chapel near St. Mary’s Well and some almshouses founded in 1678. In 2012 Queen Elizabeth II, on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee, granted St. Asaph official status as a city. Pop. (2001) 3,491; (2011) 3,355.