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Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain's Holiest Places

Ifor ap Glyn

Eric Harwood

Nick Watts

Nia Dryhurst

Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain's Holiest Places: Episode 4: Shrines

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Shrines

Episode 4

Episode 4: Shrines

BBC Four - Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain's Holiest Places, Shrines

Ifor ap Glyn visits shrines all over Britain to try to understand their appeal.

Ifor ap Glyn sets out to understand the appeal of shrines, visiting the shrine of St David in Wales and finding out why they are creeping back into the Anglican mainstream.

Presenter and Welsh poet Ifor ap Glyn explores the wealth of Britain's extraordinary holy places on a pilgrimage that spans almost 2,000 years of history. Travelling across the breadth of the UK, Ifor uncovers the stories and rich history behind many of our most famous sites, explaining the myths and legends of some of Britain's most sacred places.

Ifor sets out to understand the appeal of shrines. For those outside the Catholic and Orthodox church there is something vaguely unsettling about shrines. How can venerating the bones of a dead person bring you closer to God? 

From the unlikely starting point of Marc Bolan's roadside shrine in Barnes, Ifor embarks upon perhaps his most surprising journey. Along the way he learns that Scotland's largest city only exists because of a shrine and visits the newly-renovated shrine of St David in Wales. 

At St Albans Cathedral, he learns that shrines are slowly but surely starting to creep back into the Anglican mainstream and that rather than meeting resistance, they are being actively embraced. After viewing a genuinely shocking relic in Westminster Cathedral, Ifor meets with the Catholic archbishop Vincent Nichols, who has a radical theory about how the return of shrines represents the final chapter of the Reformation, and that is all down to Princess Diana. 

Finally, after seeing some of the finest cathedrals in the land, Ifor ends his journey at a tiny church on the fringe of Snowdonia, one which is home to a shrine that many people consider the holiest place in Britain.

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Episode 4: Shrines

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