Saint Werburgh

The treasures of Sutton Hoo and the Staffordshire Hoard indicate the untold wealth of the royal Families of East Anglia and Mercia to which the Anglo-Saxon St Werburgh belonged, although as a nun she chose to live a simpler life. To escape the Danish invasions of the 9th century, monks at Hanbury in Staffordshire brought her relics to safety in Chester, where evidence of her presence here remains in her shrine and the extensive surviving buildings of the Benedictine abbey within the present cathedral. The book tells of the of the mystery surrounding the churches built on this site in her honour and the miracles and legends connected with St Werburgh. Medieval pilgrims to her shrine and to the midsummer St Werburgh fairs in Chester brought great wealth to the city of which she is still the patron saint.