St Woolos Cathedral

I was up all night working and in between calls headed to the top of Machen Mountain to try and grab another perseid meteroite. I saw quite a few during the night but it was either in between exposures or outside of my framing. Never mind, at least I got one earlier in the week.

I was back and forth to The Royal Gwent hospital, Newport, and St Woolos Cathedral is only a couple of hundred metres away. I've been wanting to do a photo of it for ages but for ages it's had scaffold up around the front entrance, which is unsightly and not what you want when showing off one of Newport's landmarks.

The blip photo is taken at 3am from the rear. Quite a tricky exposure as there's street lights to contend with and the Cathedral itself is lit.

The name "Woolos" is a corruption of Gwynllw, the 5th-century Welsh saint who first founded a religious establishment on the site.
The present building has sections that date from Anglo-Saxon times. In the 9th century the wooden church formerly on the site was rebuilt in stone. This indicates the importance of the cult of Saint Gwynllw and the wealth of his shrine as stone buildings were unusual in Wales at this point. Part of this building is now incorporated into St Woolos cathedral as the Galilee chapel now at the west end of the Cathedral.Circa 1050 the church was attacked by pirates and left in ruins.

Circa 1080 the Normans built a new nave to the east of the Saxon ruins, and a lean-to south aisle, building a new entrance archway through the Saxon wall. Circa 1200 the Saxon church was repaired so the Norman entrance became an internal archway.

It was badly damaged in 1402 when Newport was attacked by the forces of Owain Glyndwr, and again in the English Civil war 1642-5.

It was designated a Cathedral in 1949.