Dennis Kelsall - Walking in Pembrokeshire: 40 circular walks in and around the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park

The view across Cwm-yr-Eglwys bay (Walk 17)

Like the Finisterre of Galicia and the Lands End of England, Pembrokeshire (or Pen-fro) has the same meaning for the Welsh, the end of the land. The southwestern-most tip of Wales, it presents a similar outline to the open seas as its more southerly namesakes, with ragged peninsulas reaching out towards the setting sun. Settled in the earliest times, these drawn-out strips of habitation share other things too: the roots of their Celtic culture, vividly portrayed in the enigmatic remains of ancient settlements and sacred sites; the commonality of native language and a passion for storytelling, legend and song. Pembrokeshire is a place of great dramatic beauty, where land and sea stand in hoary confrontation, with bastions of craggy cliffs pushed back behind sweeping bays, and innumerable tiny coves separated by defiant promontories.

But not everywhere is the demarcation clear. Tidal estuaries and twisting rivers penetrate deep into the heartland, where steep-sided valleys and sloping woodlands climb to a gently undulating plateau. The countryside is chequered with a myriad of small fields and enclosures bound by herb-rich boundaries of stone, earth and hedge. Even higher ground rises in the north, not true mountains perhaps in the expected sense, but bold, rolling, moorland hills from whose detached elevations the panorama extends far beyond the confines of the countys borders.

The legacy of the past

Today, much of Pembrokeshire basks in rural tranquillity with few major roads or large towns, yet it proudly boasts a city, the smallest in the land, which grew around the memory of David, the patron saint of Wales. Predominantly, however, the county is a landscape of small villages and scattered farming settlements, their history often told in ancient churches, ruined castles and the relics of abandoned industry and transport. Even more ancient are the remnants of prehistoric earthworks and enigmatic standing stones, while clues to the past can also be found in the very names of places and landscape features.

St Johns Church at Slebech (Walk 27)

Until the beginning of the last century, Pembrokeshire was less lands end and more gateway, not on the periphery but rather at the hub. Before the coming of the railways it was a maritime land, connected by sea routes to Britains great ports, Ireland, northwest Europe and far beyond. Despite the dangers and vagaries of the sea, its unpredictable weather and rudimentary navigation, travel by boat around the coasts was relatively commonplace, and for bulky or weighty cargoes it was the only economically practical means of transport. This allowed the exploitation of Pembrokeshires natural resources such as slate, stone and coal, as well as its rich farming land, and many landings and coves around the coast and along the tidal inlets were once hives of industrial activity.