National Shrine of Wales, Aberystwyth Road, Cardigan
This shrine is attached to the town’s Roman Catholic church. Inside you can see a replica of a sculpture which drew large numbers of medieval pilgrims to Cardigan.
The sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding a taper was said to have appeared miraculously beside the Teifi estuary. St Mary’s Church was built at that spot. The statue was removed and lost during the upheaval of the Reformation in the 1530s.
A new sculpture was commissioned in the 1950s. It was blessed in Westminster Cathedral in 1956 before being placed on display here.
The 1950s shrine had become badly worn by the 1980s. A new statue, made of bronze, was created by Mother Concordia Scott, a religious sculptor of international renown. Born Caroline Scott in Glasgow, she studied art in Edinburgh before joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service in the Second World War. She took the name Concordia when she became a nun in Kent in 1954.
The bronze statue was blessed at the cathedral in Cardiff and went on a tour of Wales before being installed here. Some 4,500 pilgrims attended the installation ceremony in 1986. Pope John Paul II sent a message for the event along with a taper which he had blessed in Rome. The taper was placed in the statue’s hand and lit. He also designated the Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Taper as the Welsh National Shrine of Our Lady.
When Pope Benedict visited the UK in 2010, the shrine was sent to Westminster, where he blessed it and lit the taper.
Other notable objects at the shrine include the altar, tabernacle and font, all made of slate from Penrhyn quarry in Gwynedd.
In the wooden crown of thorns you can see a stone set into the carved hammer. The stone was brought here by Father James Cunnane in 1988 from the site of Calvary. In 1987 he’d commissioned a plaque of Our Lady of Cardigan for display at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
Postcode: SA43 1LT View Location Map
National Shrine of Wales website