Town in Pembrokeshire, Wales

Haverfordwest

A Welsh county town that once ran as a county in its own right, lies just south of a language frontier, and turned its castle into a prison.

Key information

County: Pembrokeshire
Nation: Wales
Known for: Its hilltop castle, ruined priory and role as Pembrokeshire's county town
Famous people: Gwen John, Tancred the Fleming
Football clubs: Haverfordwest County AFC

About Haverfordwest

The town just south of a language frontier

Haverfordwest lies in southern Pembrokeshire, just south of the Landsker Line, an invisible boundary that runs across the county. South of it lies 'Little England beyond Wales', where English has been the everyday tongue for around 900 years. North of it, place names and traditions turn firmly Welsh. The divide goes back to the Norman and Flemish settlers who arrived in the early 1100s. They planted castles and villages across the south of the county, and the Landsker marks roughly where their grip ended. Haverfordwest grew up in the settled, English-speaking south, with the Welsh-speaking north close by. That is why the town feels like a crossroads. The Welsh name, Hwlffordd, sounds nothing like the English one, and both belong here.

A castle that had its teeth pulled

Tancred the Fleming began Haverfordwest Castle around 1110, on a ridge above the Western Cleddau. It was strong enough to matter. In 1405 a French army, landed to back Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion, burned the town but could not take the castle. The Civil War ended its fighting days. In 1648 Cromwell ordered the castle to be demolished, but the order was not carried out. It then found a stranger second career. From the late 1700s the ruins housed the county gaol, with a grim prison block built inside the old walls. The prison closed in 1878, and the old governor's house later became a museum telling the town's story.

Once a county all of its own

For centuries Haverfordwest was the Town and County of Haverfordwest, a tiny county in its own right, with its own officials, separate from the rest of Pembrokeshire. That status lasted until 1974. The reason is the river. The Western Cleddau is tidal as far as the town, so ships could sail right up to the quay below the castle. Wool, hides, coal and general cargo moved through, and by the Middle Ages Haverfordwest was one of the busiest trading towns in south-west Wales. The steep old streets still show it. Goat Street and Dark Street climb away from the river, lined with townhouses built on trading money.

Ruins, a medieval garden and a church with a famous roof

Down by the river lie the remains of Haverfordwest Priory, founded around 1200 for Augustinian canons. The stonework is ruined, but a garden has been planted with the herbs the canons would have grown for food and medicine. Up in the town centre, St Mary's Church is among the finest medieval churches in Pembrokeshire, known for its soaring nave and carved roof. Together with the castle, it gives the town a skyline that tells you its age before you reach the shops.

The painter who left for Paris

Gwen John, one of the great British painters of the early twentieth century, was born in Haverfordwest in 1876. She is known for quiet, tender portraits of women and sparse interiors, often painted in Paris, where she spent much of her adult life. For years her fame was overshadowed by that of her brother Augustus, but today many critics rate her work more highly. The town's other founding figure is Tancred himself. He was a Flemish knight whose castle was the reason a settlement grew here in the first place.

Football, farm produce and a county-town Saturday

The local football side is Haverfordwest County AFC, who play at Bridge Meadow and have taken the town into European qualifying competition. Rugby and cricket clubs keep the weekends busy too. Food here means Pembrokeshire produce: early potatoes lifted from coastal fields, Welsh cakes cooked on a bakestone, laverbread and cawl. Haverfordwest remains the market and shopping hub for much of west Wales, so on a Saturday the streets fill with people from villages all along the Cleddau and out towards the coast.