![]() He also began a tower, but that fell down in the 13th century, damaging the choir and transepts. The third Norman bishop was Peter de Leia, who began rebuilding the nave and west end of the church around 1180. When south Wales fell under the control of the Normans in the 11th and 12th centuries the new Norman bishops began a concerted program of rebuilding the earlier Welsh monastery. ![]() The cathedral we see today is thought to be the 4th to stand on the site of David's original monastery. ![]() Over the next 4 centuries the monastery was sacked by Norse raiders at least 10 times. One of those missionaries was St Patrick, who set off for Ireland from nearby Whitesands Bay. David's foundation became an important centre for training missionaries for work in Ireland. Here, on the top of the westernmost peninsula of mainland Wales, the Welsh saint Dewi, or David to give him his English name, established a monastery and served as Bishop of Menevia from the late 6th century until his death in AD 601. From the centre of St Davids the cathedral seems to appear from below ground, its tower poking up like the stalk of a flower poking its nose above the earth. The cathedral lies low on a terrace of land beneath the crest of a hill on which the surrounding city is built (it seems frankly absurd to call the lovely, picturesque village a city, but since this is a cathedral then technically St Davids is a city).
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