A JOURNEY THROUGH WALES
When Pembrokeshire-born Gerald of Wales, Archdeacon of St Davids, toured the country on horseback in 1188 escorting Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, it was to drum up support for the Third Crusade. Shirley Duxberry plans the same sort of extensive journey, only in a more peaceful cause: the restoration of her local church, one of West Wales’ most precious historical treasures.
St David’s, Llanddewi Velfrey, is said to have been originally the home of a community founded by Saint David himself on a site next to a holy spring with the unsurprising name of Ffynnon Dewi. Now the largely mediaeval building is in need of radical restoration at a cost of nearly £100,000. To help raise this figure, Shirley plans to travel throughout Wales visiting every church dedicated to the country’s Patron Saint. Her mount will be the prize-winning Arab stallion King, who represented Wales in Endurance internationally in 2006 and won the individual novice trophy.
In preparation, Shirley and King and a few friends plan to make the pilgrimage from Llanddewi Velfrey to that other St David’s – the one with the Dean and Chapter – this summer, and then to repeat the exercise visiting every St David’s Church in St Davids Diocese. You can follow her progress – and find out how to sponsor her – at www.stdavidsdiocese.org.uk. Each stage will of course be subject to the fitness of both horse and rider. Perhaps Shirley’s epic ride will one day be as famous as the one immortalised in Gerald’s classic A Journey through Wales.