Where the Saints Came From

Anne Hayward spends several months each year walking to sacred sites in Britain and beyond, now having covered many thousands of miles. Her third book recounting these pilgrimage walks looks in more detail at the history of 40+ sites she has visited in Wales or in places with a strong connection to it. In roughly chronological order, the book follows the history of Christianity in the country, discussing topics as varied as Roman roads, early medieval bell-founding, the development of Quaker graveyards, and the reinvention of an early saint in contemporary literature. It tells the remarkable story of religious faith in Wales, not only from the later Roman period and the Age of the Saints, but also in later times and into our own day, asking whether anywhere else has packed quite so much interest into so small a nation.