Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain’s Holiest Places Shrines

Series in which Ifor ap Glyn explores the wealth of Britain’s holy sites. Ifor sets out to understand the appeal of shrines – how can venerating the bones of a dead person bring you closer to God? From the unlikely starting point of Marc Bolan’s roadside shrine in Barnes, Ifor embarks upon perhaps his most surprising journey. Along the way he learns that Scotland’s largest city only exists because of a shrine and visits the newly-renovated shrine of St David in Wales. At St Albans Cathedral he learns that shrines are slowly starting to creep back into the Anglican mainstream and that rather than meeting resistance they are being embraced. After viewing a shocking relic in Westminster Cathedral he meets with the Catholic archbishop Vincent Nichols, who has a radical theory about how the return of shrines represents the final chapter of the Reformation. Ifor ends his journey at a tiny church on the fringe of Snowdonia, home to a shrine many people consider the holiest place in Britain., Ifor ap Glyn considers the appeal of shrines, discovering why they are again being embraced by the Anglican mainstream and visiting the shrines of St David – and Mark Bolan!