SaintFamous
Winefride's Relics
She lost her head in Wales. Shrewsbury got her bones.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Norman abbey church with carved shrine stones
- Legend from
- Welsh saint's legend; 1138 translation
- Tone
- Dark history
Her head was cut off, and a spring rose where it fell. Her bones came to Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury Abbey, founded by Earl Roger de Montgomery, became a pilgrimage church because of a Welsh saint. Legend says Winefride refused the advances of Caradog, who cut off her head; a healing spring rose where it fell, and St Beuno rejoined her head to her body and restored her to life, while Caradog dropped dead. In 1138 Prior Robert brought her relics from Gwytherin in Wales to the abbey, where they were enshrined and miracles were reported, and he wrote the most influential life of the saint. Henry VIII destroyed the shrine in 1540, but stones carved with Winefride, Beuno and John the Baptist survive in the church.