What are the pilgrim ways?
Nearly 1,500 years ago the first Christian Pilgrims came up the western sea routes, which lead from Mediterranean Europe through Brittany and Cornwall to Pembrokeshire and Ireland. Many of these early saints, usually scions of the princely families of Brittany, Ireland and Wales, had frequently travelled far and wide, to Rome or Jerusalem in their search for spiritual fulfilment before settling in north Pembrokeshire to establish religious houses and mission stations within the context of the social structure of west Wales in the 6th century.
Men like St David, St Brynach, St Justinian, St Colman, St Hywel, St Gwyndaf and St Teilo and even, for a brief stay St Patric, arrived in Pembrokeshire. Those who stayed founded communities as Clas churches, gathering around themselves disciples and converts to the Christian church. These converts proclaimed their new allegiance in memorial stones found throughout north Pembrokeshire and dated from the 5th to the 10th centuries. Each one is inscribed in Latin and, or, in Ogham scripts and often with the sign of the cross, which is found in many local forms.
Even in their own day these saints were revered and admired for their devotion and energetic promulgation of their faith and, over time, their actions from childhood became credited with miraculous powers to control Man, the animal world, the elements and the Devil. The story of their lives were so much part of the religious heritage of the early church that when they came to be written down during the 11th and subsequent centuries the saintly exploits appear as fresh in the minds of the authors as though they had been witnesses of the events.
There is some architectural and archaeological evidence that most of the churches dedicated to these 6th century saints were built prior to the Cymru-Norman settlement of Pembrokeshire. They are small, sunk into the land from which they are a part and breathtakingly simple, inviting peace and contemplation. Many are surrounded by circular enclosures, which themselves may belong to a prehistoric settlement of the region. Over the centuries they have at different times fallen into decay, been rebuilt and modified but this has been a reflection of changing times and social need.
The Saints and Stones trails have been set up to give both holiday visitors and residents in the county access to the deep spiritual qualities of these ancient places of worship, access to some of its more remote and beautiful corners and thereby to bring some small tourist trade to benefit the rural communities.