The origins of the city date back to the
founding of a monastic establishment on the site of Bangor Cathedral by the
Celtic saint Deiniol in the early 6th century AD. Bangor itself is an old Welsh
word for a wattled enclosure, such as the one that originally surrounded the
cathedral site. The present cathedral is a somewhat more recent building and
has been extensively modified throughout the centuries.
While the building itself is not the
oldest, and certainly not the biggest, the bishopric of Bangor is one of the
oldest in Britain. Another claim
