Thursday, 3 July 2014

Cave fit for a saint

Saint Chad's cave

The eminent local historian Father Michael Fisher postulates that this crop of rock might have been the very cave that once housed the seventh century Saint Chad.  Chad was, for a while, a hermit in these woods near Salt Village.

The soil must have risen quite a lot, I suppose, as you couldn't fit a cat in there now.  However, the people behind the Two Saints Way pilgrimage trail, which runs north-south across Staffordshire, also seem to like the story.

The cave is at Ordinance Survey reference SJ 953 273, just off the public footpath.

3 comments:

  1. I like the shot... but I've never heard of Saint Chad.

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    1. He is actually the diocesan saint of both the Anglican diocese of Lichfield and the Catholic diocese of Birmingham. He was originally buried in Lichfield Cathedral (which he is said to have found, being the first Bishop of Lichfield) and his bones are now in St. Chad's Catholic Cathedral, Birmingham.

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