Short Attention Span

Ian Rees

The Diocese of Monmouth is a diocese of the Church in Wales. Despite the name, its cathedral is located not in Monmouth but in Newport — the Cathedral Church of St Woolos. Reasons for not choosing the title of Newport included the existence of a Catholic Bishop of Newport until 1916. This apparent anomaly arose in 1921 when the diocese was created (from the eastern part of the Diocese of Llandaff) with no location for the cathedral yet chosen. Various options were being considered, such as restoring Tintern Abbey, building from scratch on Ridgeway Hill in Newport, and (the eventual choice) upgrading St Woolos, then a parish church; in the meantime the new diocese, as it covers more or less the territory of the county of Monmouth, was named the "Diocese of Mon… more »