We spent Saturday last in St Davids in Wales. It is little more than a village, but claims the title of being Britain’s smallest city. This is because a city, by one definition, is a town with a cathedral. St Davids’ Cathedral is found in a hollow below the main city centre and reached by a flight of steps and a steep path. The building itself is also on a slope and from west to east is a distinct climb up an angled floor.

It is a cathedral I know well as earlier this year I held an exhibition there. It is smaller than say Canterbury or Lincoln and in many ways less grand, yet as a centre of real spiritual feeling it is probably unrivalled. In Medieval times it was one of the country’s main centres of pilgrimage and still today, despite being out on a geographical limb, receives 1000s of visitors a year. Compared with the big cathedrals it is run on a shoe-string and yet has a standard of music that is up with the best. It is a friendly, welcoming place with none of the in-your-face money-making that mars many of Britain’s best known religious buildings.

The bishop’s palace alongside the cathedral is now a ruin and managed as a heritage site. Between the palace and the cathedral there is a small, fast running river with a ford and two footbridges. At lunchtime, we sat on a bench in the sunshine of the late Welsh summer eating a picnic, looking across the water from the cathedral side. That evening we joined the Cathedral Friends in the new refectory for the annual Friends’ dinner. Between times we attended evensong in the nave. A day as near to perfection this side of heaven as is possible.