Excavation expected to reveal more about people living in Wales 1,000 years ago

Credit: PCNPA

A final dig at the site of an early Medieval chapel on a Pembrokeshire Coast National Park beach is expected to reveal more about people living in Wales 1,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have already carried out two excavations at the site of St Patrick’s Chapel in the dunes at Whitesands Bay, St Davids.

Almost 50 skeletons dating to the 7th and 11th centuries have been uncovered. Many were in ‘cist’ graves – long graves lined with stone slabs.

Child graves were also found, decorated with layers of quartz pebbles and limpet shells.

A typical long cist burial at St Patrick’s Chapel Credit: Dyfed Archaeological Trust

This May, Dyfed Archaeological Trust will be excavating again and will conduct free tours every day from 9 to 27 May.

National Park Rangers and Voluntary Wardens will help to prepare the site by removing turf and sand.

The excavations are funded by Cadw (Welsh Government), the Nineveh Charitable Trust and the University of Sheffield, and supported by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority.

The chapel, from where St Patrick is said to have set sail for Ireland in the 5th century AD, was a ruin over 400 years ago but its location has never been forgotten and graves with human remains have regularly been exposed by storms.