The Old Way
I recently met as old man who told me of his life as a boy at Sandy Haven. He was proud to report that he and his family lived entirely off the land and sea.
A Day To Remember
Friday February 16th 2024 was a happy Pembrokeshire day that will be remembered in our family. After some weeks of winter’s grey weather with gales and rainfall that Friday proved to be mild and sunny with a blue sky.
The Great Eastern at Milford Haven
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 to 1859) was one of the 19th century engineering giants who played a major role in the Industrial Revolution. He built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, three steamships that revolutionised naval engineering (SS Great Western in 1838, SS Great Britain in1843, and SS Great Eastern in 1859), and many important bridges […]
The Lost Teddy Bear
Yesterday I spoke with our 44 year eldest daughter about her teddy bear that was lost when she was about four years old. I was surprised to find she still remembers it and is still upset at its loss. She says it was her best Teddy bear that she loved a lot and is still […]
A Gold Nugget from a Pembrokeshore Beach
In the 1980’s well-known Pembrokeshire metal detectorist Roy J. Lewis of Haverfordwest found a small gold nugget while detecting on Whitesands Beach after a winter storm. Ron wrote about it in the local paper. He told the story of how it was probably Irish gold and had been brought to Pembrokeshire by someone crossing from […]
Playing in the Gulf Stream
The sea water around the shores of Pembrokeshire is brought by the Gulf Stream or North Atlantic Drift.
The Priory That Became a Pub
A favourite place near Sandy Haven that I like to visit on a hot sunny afternoon is the Priory Inn in Lower Priory on the outskirts of Milford Haven
Grace Scurlock – Sandy Haven’s Local Artist (1927 – 2005)
This is the story of Mrs Grace Scurlock (nee Beer) who was raised at Sandy Haven as one of the Beer Family of Rock House – the house with the stone quay alongside.
The Sea Shells of Sandy Haven
Rainy days and the abundant sea shells of Sandy Haven beach have combined to provided much entertainment to our children and grandchildren at The Anchorage.
An Ancient Fishing Industry in Sandy Haven Pill
The mudflats, sand bars and rocks of the Milford Hav
The Mahog Log
Our tranquil local beach at Sand Haven can become a very bleak spot during the winter gales.
Charlie’s First Fish
There were two weeks in July 2021 when the weather was extremely hot with blue skies and sunshine every day. My oldest son Peter brought his partner Anna and their son Charlie to Wales for a week’s camping. We have our own private campsite in woodland of The Anchorage. Because they live in Scotland […]
The Great Eastern At Milford Haven
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 to 1859) was one of the 19th century engineering giants who played a major role in the Industrial Revolution. He built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, three steamships that revolutionised naval engineering (SS Great Western in 1838, SS Great Britain in1843, and SS Great Eastern in1859), and many important bridges and […]
The Emergency Hot Shower Room At The Anchorage
There are times in West Wales when it just rains and rains and the wind blows in gales. These predominantly south west winds are not particularly cold because of the warm sea water brought by the Gulf Stream or North Atlantic Drift. The locals call this weather ‘wet and windy’ and it makes a good […]
Upstairs And Downstairs – A Short History Of Sandy Haven
The first humans arrived in Britain around 900,000 BC at a time of the Great Ice Age when sea levels were low and Britain was joined by land to Europe. Their stone tools were recently found in Norfolk. Woolley mammoths, sabre toothed tigers, hyenas, primitive horses and red deer lived with them. A major ice […]
A Great Event At Mullock Bridge
Many people know about the escape of the Little Emperor Napoleon Bonapart (he was five feet 7 inches tall) from exile on the Isle of Elba (schoolchildren used to be taught about anagrams – words and sentences that read the same from either end. The best know is: ‘Able was I ere I saw Elba’). […]
The First Oil Tanker To Come To Milford Haven
From the beach at Sandy Haven one can look out into the Milford Haven Waterway and see Thorne Island with its fort and the end of what used to known as the “Esso jetty”. It was built extending 1000m out into the Milford Haven Waterway to reach the deep water channel for the super-tankers of […]
Wartime Convoys In The Milford Haven Waterway
The flooded Cleddau River valley in Pembrokeshire was described by Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson on his famous visit with the Hamiltons. He said that it was the next best natural harbour to Trincomalee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) that he had ever seen. During both World Wars the Milford Haven waterway become the collecting place […]
A Family Outing To Albion Sands
Albion Sands is a lovely golden sand beach backed by high red cliffs of Devonian sandstone and shale. It lies immediately north of Marloes sands and east of the long narrow Gateholm Island. The beach is accessible from Marloes car park, but requires walking in the opposite direction, past the Marloes Youth Hostel. Many years […]
Cynhaliaeth Priffyrdd
During our 2018 family reunion at The Anchorage the weather as cold and wet, but we managed some trips to the crabbing bridge with the grandchildren. However the number of crabs caught was dismal. Whereas a bucketful was previously normal we were getting only one or two crabs each trip. This might have been due […]
Our 2018 Family Reunion
On March 31st 2018 our family congregated at The Anchorage for a reunion. The house was full and the three grandsons and a new granddaughter dominated events. Also the weather proved unseasonably cold and wet. I was surprised to find that the three grandsons, aged 4, 5 and 6 years were very taken with the […]
The Mill Bay Disaster
Mill Bay is located just inside the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway on the north side adjacent to St Ann’s lighthouse. For ships entering the waterway, it is necessary to pass Mill Bay to reach the sheltered anchorages of Dale and Angle Bays. Mill Bay has been the scene of a very large number […]
The Swans Of Sandy Haven
Every March, Mute swans (Cygnus olor) gather in Sandy Haven Pill. Their numbers steadily increase to around twenty. They are a sociable lot and fish and swim together following the tide in and out of the pill. At high tide they are at the top of the flooded pill and at low tide when the […]
A Royal Visit
On Sunday 7th August 1955, the Royal Yacht Britannia was anchored in the Milford Haven Waterway. It was a lovely sunny August day and a young Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh with their two young children Prince Charles (then aged 7 years) and Princess Anne (then aged 5 years) were brought ashore […]
Bats At The Anchorage, Sandy Haven
Situated in a narrow steep-sided valley with tall trees and a stream of running water, The Anchorage is an ideal spot for bats. For the past ten years they have been seen with increasing frequency. Visitors are increasingly talking about spending their evenings in the Monks Garden (the terrace with roses) watching the activities of […]
Flemish settlers landed at Sandy Haven Pill
The Normans invaded from Normandy. They were European descendants of Vikings or Northmen – Normanni in Latin. Their Dutchy was formed in 911 under the strong Norman leadership of Rollo. William the Conqueror died on 9th September 1087, some 21 years after the Battle of Hastings. His wife Queen Matilda of Flanders had died earlier […]
Sandy Haven Pill protected by floating boom from Sea Empress oil spill
15th February 1996 is an infamous day in Pembrokeshire and one still remembered with deep sadness. It was the day the super tanker Sea Empress went onto the rocks in the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway. Like the Torrey Canyon before her (also on route to Milford Haven), she spilled her cargo of crude oil […]
Sandy Haven was a decoy site for Luftwaffe bombers
Today the hamlet of Sandy Haven, with its 6 houses, is a sleepy quiet hollow on the tidal creek, best suited for summer holidays where small boats are moored, children and families play, catch crabs, swim and kayak. Not many people know that during World War II the fields lying on either side of […]
The Monks Garden
After The Anchorage was built, the garden in front of the house proved very wet and muddy with a thick red clay soil. Roses, lavender and flowers put into the clay quickly died in the very acid wet soil. At the time archaeologists had been working on the then-overgrown ruins of the Elizabethan […]
Another gift from King Neptune
Pembrokeshire, with its three peninsulas (St. David’s, Dale and Castlemartin) jutting out into the Irish Sea, is at the receiving end of anything floating across the Atlantic Ocean drive by the Gulf Stream or North Atlantic Drift. The south-westerly winds, driving the great conveyor belt in the sea, deliver an astonishing variety of debris and […]
Aluminum wreckage finally identified
It took a long time to solve the puzzle of the aluminium wreckage recovered over a number of years of family summer holidays on Lindsway Bay (See story “The Aluminium wreckage of Lindsway Bay, Pembrokeshire”). The main conclusion after many years was that it was heavy duty and probably part of a launch or small […]
The big oak tree
In the winter of 2013-14 there was a great gale in Pembrokeshire with very strong winds from the west. A lot of big old trees were blown down all lying with their roots to the west and their tops to the east. Along the side of Sandy Haven tidal inlet, where The Anchorage small holding […]
The bridge is coming up
By John (this story based on fact was modified for submission to a Bloomsbury book company short story competition with the theme of “Ageing” to be judged in February 2016). Saturday morning, 10.00 am, August 2015. An old man, approaching his 72nd year, stands on Sandy Haven beach – the stony one on the west […]
My 69th birthday celebration in Wales
My name is Joop and I am a retired geologist living in Haarlem, Netherlands. On the occasion of my 69th birthday I decided to give a party for some Dutch friends and enjoy the Wales experience. Selecting a suitable house was not a problem, as a friend of mine had built a grand mansion shortly […]
The Rock Collection In The Garden At The Anchorage
As a schoolboy raised in Pembrokeshire, the beaches were my playground. My life started in Milford Haven. In the late 1940’s before cars and televisions became common, families on hot summer days would walk to the towns two beaches (Milford Beach and Scotch Bay) to picnic and swim while the children would amuse themselves. Surprisingly […]
Feasting at The Anchorage
After four years of summer renting of The Anchorage (sleeping 10 persons in 5 bedrooms), it is emerging as a popular place for family reunions. In September 2014, we had our own family reunion there. We were myself and my wife, our four children and their partners and three grandchildren aged between two and a […]
A Young Lady Visitor From America
At our 2014 family reunion at The Anchorage, our youngest son Matt brought along a charming young American lady called Caitlin. She was a lovely buoyant girl with a ready smile and we all liked her very much. She was born and raised in San Antonio in Texas. This is a very different place to […]
A Day Sail to The Islands
When the balmy days of summer arrive in Pembrokeshire, the world is a warm friendly place and winter gales and rain are but a memory. The sea beckons and sail boats appear on the long flooded estuary of the Milford Haven waterway beneath blue skies with fluffy white clouds. It is a time to get […]
Boat Trip to Stack Rock Fort
This is my first story for The Anchorage website. I am Matt, second son in the Roobol family, and I have spent much of my childhood and time as an adult swimming, fishing, BBQing, and enjoying family holidays in Pembrokeshire. I have fond memories of visiting Lindsway Bay as a young child and my imagination […]
The Nicholas Stone
The Anchorage site when purchased was full of rock and it took several summers of activity to get it all cleared up. The numerous vast sandstone boulders (shed by a thick layer of this rock that crosses the valley in the garden) were used to hold newly-cut terraces (originally sloping vegetable gardens for the two […]
The Black Mud of Sandy Haven
As a teenager in Milford Haven, my old grannie Newman worried about my roaming about looking at rocks in strange places as this was regarded as rather bizarre behaviour. She was always afraid of Sandy Haven tidal inlet and warned me never to go there. The reason was she explained that in the old days […]
Cap Stones for The Anchorage Gate Posts
One summer when our oldest son Peter was 12 years old, we took one of his school friends (Matthew) with us to Pembrokeshire for our annual summer holiday. Our group then consisted of my wife, myself, the two boys, a daughter about 8 years old and our youngest son was about 2 years and travelled […]
King Neptune and The Pembrokeshire Coastline
During a lifetime of summer holidays in Pembrokeshire, mainly spent on the beaches with a family that grew to include what became four children, we all enjoyed beachcombing. For the small children stories of King Neptune and beach searches for “gifts” from King Neptune were an important part of the summer holiday. Tiny tots were […]
My ‘Orrible Dad
In 1982 I bought a plot of land at Sandy Haven and started work on a house and gardens (now The Anchorage). Work had to start immediately as it was in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and the site, with a pair of linked ruined stone cottages, had been abandoned for 14 years. Park rules […]
The Aluminium Wreckage of Lindsway Bay Pembrokeshire
When our children were young, August spent in Pembrokeshire was very sunny and the winds blew from the south west. Lately for some years August has become the monsoon season and the winds blow from the south east and south and even the north. In those balmy years we established a holiday routine where our […]
Three Big Waves at West Dale Bay
One very hot sunny summers day on our annual Pembrokeshire holiday when our first child was about 8 years old, we all went to West Dale Bay. It was a perfect day with a calm sea and the tide coming in. The beach was not crowded with few people. We played with the children and […]
The Bottle of Orange Juice at Musselwick Sands Pembrokeshire
One summer when our fourth child was still a baby we spent the day on Musselwick sands beyond Marloes village. This involved parking alongside the road and walking across a field to reach the little valley leading down to the beach (see photograph below of children that day with our oldest son carrying the bottle […]
An Early Winter Storm
Its nice to visit Pembrokeshire at different seasons to see the changes. One time when we had three young children we decided to have a holiday in Pembrokeshire in October at the school half term. On this occasion we rented a large caravan in a caravan park situated on the top of a hill on […]
The Missing Canoeist
It was one of those rare summer days in Wales when everything is perfect. Overhead the blue sky had some fluffy white cumulus clouds and it was a time when a Spring high tide occurred in the afternoon. Sandy Haven creek was filled to brimming with clear green water which at these times is 18 feet […]
The Lost Watch at Lindsway Bay
It was another summer holiday in Pembrokeshire and our family had now grown to four children. Lindsway Bay by the village of St. Ishmaels had became our favourite. We would drive there and park in the Sports Club car park and then everyone with a rucksack would walk to the coast path and then down […]