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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 6: Caves

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Caves

Episode 6

Episode 6: Caves

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

Ifor sets out to understand what happens when our religious urges drive us underground.

Ifor ap Glyn looks at what happens when our religious urges drive us underground, visiting a hermit's cave and a piece of religious theatre in a crypt of Ripon Cathedral.

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 what happens when our religious urges drive us underground. His first stop is Lud's Church in Derbyshire, one of the most dramatic and eerie holy places in the land, once described as 'the place for the Devil to say matins'. 

Ifor then heads back 14,000 years to find evidence of perhaps the oldest holy place in Britain. He follows the path of St Cuthbert's body as it was shifted between caves in the north of England to escape the attentions of Viking raiders and visits the cave of St Govan where a hermit was miraculously enveloped in rock to evade local gangs of wreckers. 

He meets a nun in Norwich who tells him about a young woman who was bricked up alive for over 40 years in an act of almost unbelievable devotion and finally heads to a crypt of Ripon Cathedral to discover one of the most dramatic pieces of religious theatre in Britain.

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