Named after the former landowner Nicholas Hobbs, Hobbs Point was built in the early 1830s to accommodate the mail and packet boats that ran between west Wales and Waterford in Ireland. This service began in 1750 and operated until 1966. The mail and…

David James sat down with Ports, Past and Present to share his passion for sailing and talks about a particularly fine sailing yacht that he restored and sailed for many years. Ahoi!

David James sat down with Ports, Past and Present and shared his memories of moving to Pembroke Dock as a child during the Second World War and the pastimes he enjoyed with friends around the town and down by the river edge.

In the just over 200 years of its existence, Pembroke Dock has had a proud history of building hundrets of ships, large and not so large, motorised and propelled by wind. Although the dockyard has been closed now for several decades, ships still get…

The first scheduled steam packet service between West Wales and Ireland can be traced to back the year 1824. It was in that year that the Post Office replaced its sailing packets on the Milford Haven to Waterford run with steamships. The…

Pembroke Dock (Doc Penfro) and adjacent Milford Haven (Aberdaugleddau) both developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from small village settlements, Paterstown and Hubberstown, on the banks of the Cleddau river. The vast natural harbour…

The gun tower in Front Street, Pembroke Dock, is commonly referred to as the 'Martello tower'. However, when it was built it was known as a Cambridge Gun Tower. Emperor Louis Napoleon III was building a Second Empire of France in the 1840's, and was…

A cold dark night in December 1920 saw the most celebrated of the Fishguard’s many lifeboat rescues. The boat in question was Charterhouse, funded by the school of that name and presented to the RNLI station in 1908. The boat was built for rough…

'Pembroke Dock' is an abbreviation of 'Pembroke Dockyard', the new name given to the location in 1817. The Royal Navy had built the dockyard and adjacent town three years earlier in 1814, initially calling it 'Pater Yard'. The sole purpose of the…

A local story in Pembroke Dock concerns the launch of HMS Caesar, planned for July 21, 1853. The ship was a wooden two decker, screw propelled ship of ninety-one guns. As was the custom on launch days all the residents of Pembroke Dock would flock…