A holiday in West Wales in the early Autumn of 2022 led to a little research on the railways in the area. This is the second article about Pembrokeshire’s Railways. The first focussed on the pre-railway age.

https://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/09/13/railways-in-west-wales-part-1a-pembrokeshire-mines-quarries-and-their-railways-before-the-railway-age

The featured image (above) is an image from “Britain From Above” of Fishguard Harbour, Goodwick and Fishguard.

The Railways

Mainline Railways of Broad Gauge

The South Wales Railway – “The main line from Swansea to Neyland, a port on Milford Haven Waterway, was opened as a broad-gauge line by the South Wales Railway from 1852, and that company merged with the Great Western Railway in 1862. The main line was converted to “narrow gauge” (later known as “standard gauge”) in 1872, and most of the original main line is in use today.” [31]

“Several independent lines were opened in West Wales, and at the “grouping” of the railways in 1923 most of them were absorbed by the Great Western Railway. Some of them were chiefly mineral railways, and many have closed as the industries they served declined. Some rural routes too have closed, but branch lines to Pembroke and Milford Haven, and a main line extension to Fishguard are still in operation.” [31] Other local lines became part of the GWR almost as soon as they were built.

Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway (C&CR) – On 7th August 1854 “the Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway obtained Parliamentary authorisation to build a line to Cardigan from a junction with the South Wales Railway at Carmarthen. It was to be a broad gauge line, and a new Carmarthen station closer to the town than the SWR station, was to be constructed. The company found it difficult to raise money for construction, and at first was only able to open from the SWR as far as its own Carmarthen station: this section was opened on 1 March 1860; the SWR Carmarthen station was renamed Carmarthen Junction.” [31]

The C&CR extended a further 6 miles to Conwil on 3rd September 1860. It was worked by GWR engines, and unprofitable, and it closed on 31st December 1860. It reopened on 12th August 1861 and opened an extension to Pencader on 28th March 1864 and to Llandyssul on 3rd June 1864. It got no further during its independent existence, and its own traffic was never busy. [31]

Please see a separate post on this blog for further details about this line. ……….. TBA ……….

Mainline Railways of Standard Gauge

The Manchester and Milford Railway was originally intended as a trunk route connecting the industrial areas of Lancashire with the developing port facilities in Milford Haven. Funding was not forthcoming for the grand scheme and a lesser option of connecting with the Llanidloes & Newtown Railway was pursued, in the hope that the wider network would give access to Manchester. At the Southern end it would connect to the C&CR at Pencader. [31]

As an afterthought, a branch to Aberystwyth was included. Eventually, during construction it became obvious that the link to Llanidloes was beyond the railway company’s resources and the branch to Aberystwyth became the mainline. [31]

Still desperately short of money, the M&MR opened its first section from Pencader to Lampeter on 1 January 1866. The C&CR had not laid the necessary third rail for through running, and for several months the break of gauge was an obstacle. The M&MR instructed its own contractor to lay the rail, and M&MR goods trains ran through to Carmarthen over the C&CR from 1 November 1866; passenger train operation commenced on 1 November 1867. [31]

Meanwhile, the M&MR had been building northwards, and opened its own line as far as Strata Florida (the railway location was known locally as Ystrad Meurig at first) for goods trains by the end of August 1866. The entire route of 41 miles to Aberystwyth was opened throughout on 12 August 1867. At first the service was operated by the contractors, using three Sharp, Stewart locomotives.[31][32][33]

The Pembroke and Tenby Railway was a locally promoted railway in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It was built by local supporters and opened in 1863. The line, now known as the Pembroke Dock branch line, remains in use at the present day. In 1866, the Pembroke and Tenby Railway was extended to Whitland on the South Wales Railway broad gauge main line but being of the narrow gauge – later known as standard gauge – it was not possible to run Pembroke and Tenby trains on the South Wales Railway lines to Carmarthen. [30]

The Narberth Road and Maenclochog Railway – In 1871 Edward Cropper and Joseph Babington Macaulay obtained a Board of Trade certificate to build a standard gauge line from a slate quarry at Rosebush, about 8 miles north of Narberth Road station on the South Wales Railway main line. The line was named the Narberth Road and Maenclochog Railway, and it opened in January 1876, and from September 1876 passengers were carried. The business was not profitable, and the railway closed at the end of 1882, but it was reopened in December 1884, closing once again in 1888. [31]

The Whitland and Taf Vale Railway is shown on the map above. On 12th July 1869 the Whitland and Taf Vale Railway obtained its authorising Act of Parliament, with capital of £37,000. The line was opened as far as Glogue to goods and minerals trains on 24th March 1873. By this time the former South Wales Railway main line had been converted to standard gauge. Early in July 1874 a short extension to Crymmych was opened to goods and then to passengers on 12th July 1875. There was a connecting road service to Cardigan and to Newport.[31][32][34]

A fuller account of this line as part of the line through to Cardigan which was completed in …… can be found elsewhere on my blog. ……..TBA…………….

The Milford Junction Railway – 1854 saw the South Wales Railway reach Haverfordwest, at which point a decision had to be made as to the terminus. New Milford at Neyland was selected, in spite of local opposition and the line was completed in April 1856. [35][36]

Robert Fulke Greville, a local landowner determined to finance a project himself which would see the railway come to Milford Haven under the Milford Junction Railway, a four-mile spur from Johnston. Construction was completed in 1863, [37] when the line was connected to the South Wales Railway at Johnston, and a station at Milford was opened. [36] The line was, and remains, single track, but sufficient room was allowed in cuttings and under bridges for doubling the track if required. [35]

The North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway – was promoted in 1884 with the intention of extending the Maenclochog Railway to Goodwick on Fishguard Bay. [38]

The Fishguard Bay Railway and Pier Company – An Act of Parliament permitted Joseph Rowlands and James Cartland to incorporate this company on 29th June 1893. The Act permitted a line to be built from Fishguard Bay (at Goodwick) towards Narberth Road via Rosebush. Necessary running powers were granted. In parallel, “the Waterford and Wexford Railway was engaged in improving the harbour facilities at Rosslare … and negotiations took place to combine the activities on both sides of the ferry crossing. This culminated in the incorporation of the Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Company by Act of 31 July 1894.” [31]

In 1894, Rowlands and Cartland purchased the derelict Maenclochog Railway for £50,000. “The line was in a very poor state of repair, and much had to be done in the way of improvements, but goods traffic started on 13 March 1895 followed by passenger trains on 11 April 1895.” [31]

The GWR turned down an opportunity to purchase the railway as the original Maenclochog line was inadequately engineered. In doing so the GWR left themselves open to Rowlands approaching the LNWR and promoting an alternative link from the Maenclochog line to Carmarthen. His Bill was passed in Parliament in 1895. “Rowlands prepared plans for further schemes including a line to Swansea, and in 1896 to Aberdare and make junctions with the LNWR, the Midland Railway and the GWR en route; sale to any of those railways was now a theoretical possibility.” [31]

I am aware of one locomotive from this line which reached preservation as a static display at Scolton Manor Museum, Bethlehem, Haverfordwest. [44][45]

The Great Western Railway had long considered revival of the original South Wales Railway’s scheme to reach Fishguard Bay securing a share of the transatlantic shipping trade. The possibility of the LNWR acquiring access to the West Wales network motivated the GWR to step in; it acquired control of the railway from Narberth Road to Fishguard Bay in February 1898. [31]

In May 1898 an agreement was concluded between the GWR, the Great Southern and Western Railway in Ireland, and the Fishguard and Rosslare Company which secured the completion of the two harbours, rail link from Rosslare to Waterford, the GS&WR’s commitment to work the necessary connecting railways on the Irish side; and the GWR’s commitment to making a new line from Clarbeston Road to Fishguard Harbour, and work the Welsh railways. [39] It appears that the GWR was also obliged to provide “an effective steamboat service” between Waterford and Milford or Fishguard, in addition to the Rosslare service. [40]

“The agreement was ratified by Parliament in 1899, and the acquisition by the GWR of the North Pembrokeshire line was included. On 1st July 1899 [41] the GWR opened the extension from Letterston to Goodwick (later named Fishguard and Goodwick) station. [42] The Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours company became a joint enterprise of the GWR and the GS&WR.” [31][43]

St. David’s Light Railway – on 9th September 1904 the Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser carried an article entitled, ‘Proposed Railway to St. David’s: Details of the Promoter’s Intentions.’ The article advertised a meeting of interested parties on 10th September 1904 to consider the possibility of a light railway between Haverfordwest and St. David’s under the purview of the Light Railways Act 1896. As the express intention was to create a junction with the GWR at Haverfordwest it would have been a standard-gauge line. It would have had a total length of about 16 miles and would also serve the anthracite coalfield in the Newgale district. Two branches were proposed to Porthclais and Solva Harbours and Newgale sands. [46]

The project was still under consideration in the 1920s. Pembrokeshire Record Office holds a drawing showing a longitudinal section of the line dated 1924. [47] The National Archive holds a further document relating to the proposed line, dated 1929. [48] Sadly, the St. David’s Light Railway did not get built.

The next article in this series will look at the industrial railways in Pembrokeshire.

References

1. M.R. Connop-Price; Pembrokeshire: the Forgotten Coalfield; Landmark Publishing, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 2004

30. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembroke_and_Tenby_Railway, accessed on 11th September 2022.

31. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Western_Railway_in_West_Wales, accessed on 11th September 2022.

32. D S M Barrie, revised Peter Baughan; A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 12: South Wales; David St John Thomas, Nairn, 1994.

33. J S Holden, The Manchester and Milford Railway, Oakwood Press, Usk, 1979.

34. M.R. Connop-Price; The Whitland and Cardigan Railway, Oakwood Press, Usk, 1976.

35. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Haven_railway_station, accessed on 11th September 2022.

36. Wing Commander Ken McKay; A Vision of Greatness: The History of Milford 1790-1990; Brace Harvatt Associates, 1989.

37. James Frederick Rees; The Story of Milford; University of Wales Press, 1954.

38. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pembrokeshire_and_Fishguard_Railway, accessed on 11th September 2022.

39. W M J Williams; North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway; in the Railway Magazine, September 1899.

40. H Fayle; The Jubilee of the Fishguard and Rosslare Route: I; in the Railway Magazine, May 1956.

41. Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith; Carmarthen to Fishguard; Middleton Press, Midhurst, 2010.

42. John Morris; The Railways of Pembrokeshire; H G Walters (Publishers) Ltd, Tenby, 1981.

43. E T MacDermot; History of the Great Western Railway: volume II: 1863 – 1921; published by the Great Western Railway, London, 1931.

44. https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/1378-north-pembrokeshire-fishguard-railway-0-6-0st, accessed on 12th September 2022.

45. https://www.culture4pembrokeshire.co.uk/content.asp?nav=8, accessed on 12th September 2022.

46. https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3063690/3063692, accessed on 12th September 2022.

47. Ref. No. HDX/287/19/799; https://records.pembrokeshire.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=HDX%2F287%2F19, accessed on 12th September 2022.

48. Ref. No. BT 56/10/363; https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C6230599, accessed on 12th September 2022.

A holiday in West Wales in the early Autumn of 2022 led to a little research on the railways in the area.

Looking furthest West, we start with the industrial railways of Pembrokeshire. …. Before 2022, I was unaware of the coalfield that existed in Pembrokeshire which was served by a series of short railways and tramroads/tramways.

The featured image above shows Porthgain harbour in 2005. The pier was the terminus of the Porthgain to Abereiddi railway.

Before the Railways

Elsewhere in the UK, a usual pattern of development was for river traffic to be supplemented by tramroads and canals which then, often when traffic warranted it, were replaced by railways. It did not exactly work out like that in Pembrokeshire. … We start with a quick look at the history of industrial transport of the County before the railways. …

River and Estuary Traffic in Pembrokeshire.

Natural waterways were often used as main trade routes and various form of vessel were used sometimes with sails but usually (even then) with bow-haulers or horse-power on the river banks.

Historically, the Daugleddau Estuary was important in the early Industrial Revolution, shipping anthracite from Llangwm, Landshipping and Crescelly, and limestone from Lawrenny and West Williamston. [20]

Haverfordwest was at the tidal limit of the Western Cleddau river.It was the first bridging point and had its own port. … There is evidence of a quay in Haverfordwest as early as 1690. “Haverfordwest was the official shipping point for textiles, hides and wool from across this region. Ships departed for ports around the British Isles before the growing railway network replaced coastal shipping. In the early 1830s, Haverfordwest was dispatching £100,000 worth of goods a year – mainly butter and corn – to Liverpool and London.” [2]

It seems that the Eastern Cleddau was also used as an inland waterway. Timber was cut on the Slebech estate and formed into rafts which were then floated on the receding tide down to a point just below the confluence of the Eastern and Western Cleddau rivers. The rising tide was then used to carry these rafts upstream on the Western Cleddau to Hook or one of a number of small quays where the rafts were dismantled and the timber then used for pit props in a number of mines. [1: p121]

Milford Haven Waterway is a drowned valley which was flooded at the end of the last ice age.[3] The Daugleddau estuary winds west to the sea. As one of the deepest natural harbours in the world, it is a busy shipping channel, trafficked by ferries from Pembroke Dock to Ireland, oil tankers and pleasure craft. Admiral Horatio Nelson, visiting the haven with the Hamiltons, described it as the next best natural harbour to Trincomalee in Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka ) and “the finest port in Christendom”. [4]

Milford Haven was at one time a staging point on sea journeys to Ireland, and was used as a shelter by Vikings. From those days on, it was a port of vital significance which provided safe shelter to many a vessel. It was seen as being if strategic importance from at least the 15th century. [5]

Roads and Tracks

“Late 18th and early 19th century travellers in South Wales … frequently commented on the appalling condition of the roads. This was at a time when the condition of roads across England and Wales was generally improving as a result of turnpike trusts creating new roads and upgrading existing roads. Prior to the creation of the turnpike road system, most roads, lanes and tracks linked villages and small towns; long distance road travel was rare, and virtually impossible for wheeled vehicles. Some improvement was carried out by large landowners, but it was not until the creation of turnpike trusts that a co-ordinated road network came into being. By 1750 about 150 trusts had been established in England and Wales, rising to
almost 700 by 1800 and over a 1000 in 1825.” [21]

“Some of the early turnpike routes in south-west Wales were improvements to existing roads, but by the end of the 18th century new routes were being created and the older roads (or sections of them) either became downgraded to a local
lane or track, or were abandoned.” [21]

The narrowness of local roads in Pembrokeshire meant that carts had to be long and thin making them difficult to manage. [1: p121] Hiring of horses appears to have been excessively expensive because of their scarcity. [1: p122] As in much of the rural areas of England and Wales, the condition of roads in the County of Pembrokeshire was appalling. “Outside the towns few if any had any kind of prepared surface, and the unfortunate traveller had to contend with potholes and deep mud in winter, and with bone jarring ruts and choking dust in summer.” [1: p123] Very high tolls were extracted by various turnpike trusts. Direct land routes were often not available and as a result some collieries were totally dependent on shipping. [1: p124]

Canals in Pembrokeshire?

Apparently it was as late as 1792 that the first attempt was made to build a canal to move coal in Pembrokeshire.

Canals elsewhere in Wales appeared somewhat earlier. The first, in 1769, was in the Gwendraeth Valley in Carmarthenshire. It was soon followed by others.

M.R. Connop-Price tells us, however, that in 1792, “Lord Milford endeavoured to construct a canal between his pits at Merrixton Bottom(Stepaside) and his shipping place on the beach at Wiseman’s Bridge, a distance of just over a mile.” [1: p120]
It appears that the Milford canal was designed only to accommodate tub-boats and was never completed. Industrial archaeologists reached this conclusion in the 1960s as they studied what remnants of the proposed canal remained. By the 1990s most of the evidence of the proposed canal had disappeared. [1: p 121]

It seems that Pembrokeshire had no one willing to invest in a canal after the attempt was made by Lord Mitford! [1: p121]

Tramways/Tramroads (which preceded the use of railways)

It seems that the pioneer of the first canal in Wales (in the Gwendraeth Valley, East of the Pembrokeshire county boundary), Thomas Kymer, owned land to the South side of the village of Nolton. It is thought that he constructed a wooden tramway of about 0.75 mile in length from pits on his estate to Nolton Haven. As he moved from Pembrokeshire to Carmarthenshire before 1770, the tramway would have had to be built before that date. [1: p125][6]. We cannot be sure that the tramway was built. There is greater certainty over a, probably short-lived tramway connecting pits at Folkston and Simpson on the estate of R.P. Laugharne to Nolton Haven. [1: p125][7]

Connop-Price tells us that “the earliest Pembrokeshire tramway which can be dated confidently was constructed at Landshipping, on the estate of the Owens of Orielton. In 1800, Colonel Colby, as a trustee of the estate, initiated fresh investment in the Landshipping colliery, the works including the building if a new embankment and bridge across Landshipping Pill and a new quay on the South side of the Pill.” [1: p125][8] “Ten years later, in 1810 and 1811, tramways were added to these structures, linking them with the main pits comprising the Landshipping colliery.” [1: p125][9]

It seems that, “in its original form this tramway was a plateway, that is to say that it ran on L-shaped cast iron plates laid on stone blocks. … It is thought that these plateways went out of use either before or at the time of the Garden Pit accident at Landshipping in 1844. When the coal industry in this district received some new investment in the 1860s, it is believed that the tramway then in use had edge rails. Unfortunately this reconstructed tramway seems to have been abandoned after a halt to mining activity in 1867.” [1: p125]

An inspection of the coal works at Freystrop and Little Milford was undertaken in 1805. A recommendation in the inspection report was that a Tramroad should be built between the Cleddau at Little Milford Quay and the coal workings at Freystrop. If built when recommended it will have been a plateway but any delay may have seen it constructed in edge rails. [1: p125] By 1850, the Tramroad was an edge railway, “and it had been extended by the provision of two or three short branches to nearby pits, the most significant serving coal pits at Maddox Moor. … The last reference to it appears … in 1882.” [1: p126]

This Tramroad is recorded by Coflein. Their record notes it as “The track of a tramway shown only on the 1837 Tithe map now a straight path through the woods. The tramway connected part of the extensive Freystrop colliery to the south with the quay at Little Milford. The tramway now only survives as a kind of cutting through the woods and had gone by the time of the O.S. survey later in the 19th century. However it is a very interesting survivor in however a slight a form since it represents an early phase of mining in the area and a very early tramway.” [10]

Dyfed Archaeology notes that “by 1839, a tramway led down from Freystrop to the quays, and an incline from Maddox Moor to Little Milford had been established by 1851. However, the decline in the coal mining industry in the early 20th century followed by the closure of the Pembrokeshire collieries in 1947, resulted in Little Milford reverting back to a minor shipping/landing place.” [11] This suggests that there was a period of about 12 years when no inclined plane was available for access from the tramroad from Freystrop to the quay at Little Milford. A sinuous old cart road is shown on Connop-Price’s drawing. This may well have been an original steep alignment of the Tramroad which was proven to be too steep for regular traffic and which was replaced by the inclined plane.

Connop-Price highlight initiatives further to the East, to develop a tramway in the Saundersfoot area in 1806 and again in 1825. The first appears to have been an abortive attempt, the second was probably short-lived as on “a map of the Hean Castle estate dated 1845, the line was then considered an ‘old tramway’, thus implying that it had a very short career.” [1: p126] Connop-Price says that “the route of the tramway between Coppet Hall and St. Issell’s church survives as a footpath known as Black Walk, and the tramway itself is sometimes described as ‘the Black Walk Tramway’.” [1: p126]

The Black Walk Tramway is referred to in a publication on the Visit Saundersfoot Bay website. [12] The Saundersfoot Railway will be considered in a future article.

At Hook on the Western Cleddau authorisation was given, early in 1837, for the construction of a tramroad on land of no greater width than 15ft between Hook Colliery and the River which seems to have been the first part of a small network of tramways. [13] Connop-Price tells that this tramway appears initially to have been “about half-a-mile long from the Pill to the Commons Pit, sunk in 1840, with extensions onwards to the Slide Pit, Winding Pit and the Aurora Pit and the Green Pit. Before long it was extended as far as the escarpment overlooking the Western Cleddau above Hook Quay.” [1: p126,128] Connop-Price also notes that “the alignments of some of these tramways can be traced in the fields at West Hook.” [1: p143] I have been unsuccessful in identifying these old routes on Google Earth’s satellite images but one length is shown on the early Ordnance Survey of the area. This is shown in the second image below.

Hook Quay is noted as an Ancient Monument (Cadw Legacy ID: PE529). The Ancient Monuments website says that it is “an important element of the eighteenth century coal industry in Pembrokeshire … located between Hook Bight and Hook Reach in the inter-tidal zone on the S bank of the Western Cleddau. The stone built quay is mostly intact and located within the garden of a residential house. Caesar Mathias Junior of Hook constructed the quay in 1791 to serve Hook Colliery. Shallow draught barges transported anthracite from Hook Quay downstream to larger ports such as Milford Haven. The quay is visible as a substantial masonry wall with a wooden framework to the N and a raised area of made-up ground to the S. The quay measures c. 3m tall. The combined stone and wooden structure measures c. 40m N-S by 40m E-W.” [14] No mention is made on the website of the 19th century tramways associated with the Quay.

The tramways are mentioned in passing in “The Secret Waterway” published by PLANED (Pembrokeshire Local Action Network for Enterprise and Development) in 2008: “The area was once the centre of a thriving coal industry. Anthracite coal was mined from the fourteenth century and was exported as far as Spain. Legend relates that the Spanish sailors bartered daffodil bulbs for coal. The early workings were shallow
shafts, four to six metres deep, but, by the 19th century, deep mines such as the Old Aurora and Amen pits had opened. A tramway was built to carry coal to Hook Quay for shipment. By
1931, 35,000 tons of coal was exported by rail and water. Thereafter production declined and following flood damage in 1948, the last of the pits closed.” [16]

Worthy of a short note here is a further tramway in the vicinity of Hook village which served a colliery erected/incorporated in 1858. The tramway was about 0.5 mile long running along the South side of Hook/Sprinkle Pill. This tramway was first used in 1858 and closed in 1866. [1: p128][27][28]

One final tramway associated with Hook Quay is worth noting. In 1888, or thereabouts, West Park Colliery, which was due South of the Quay was linked by a 770 yard tramway. Connop-Price tells us that “there were five bridges over or under this line largely built of wood, and the final 300 yards comprised a steep rope-worked incline dropping down to the quay.” [1: p128] This line appears immediately to the West of Hook village on the extract above from the plan in Connop-Price’s thesis. [1: p129 Fig. 36]

The Porthgain To Abereiddi Tramway (1880s) was highlighted by Coflein in a report dated 18th November 2014. It connected a “quarry pit at Abereiddi (now a tidal pool) with the hoppers above the harbour at Porthgain. The section of the tramway at the West nearest the quarry pit connects with the processing works and lift (NPRN 420607) above the pit. Here there are the remains of sleeper beams each about 1.2m long. the trackway itself being about 2.5m wide. Further East the line continues to a water tank (NGR SM8115 3262) where it veers SE and splits into two branches (possibly three) to terminate above the hoppers at Porthgain. There are no surviving rails. Trucks were initially pulled by horses but later by steam locomotives.” [23] The tramway appears on the 1887 6″ Ordnance Survey published in 1888. The tramway was active from the 1880s to 1931. [26] The tramway was 3.6km (2.2 miles) long. Its rails were 91cm (3ft) apart. From 1909, steam locomotives shunted wagons at the harbour, where stone also arrived from other quarries. The Abereiddi tramway remained horse-powered. [29] There were a series of four different small engines used at the port. [26]

It’s route is shown in the series of extracts from the Ordnance Survey maps below. …

Much of the alignment shown in the map extracts above can be followed on satellite images from Google Earth.

In the next article in this series we will survey the mainline railways of Pembrokeshire.

References

1. M.R. Connop-Price; Pembrokeshire: the Forgotten Coalfield; Landmark Publishing, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 2004

2.  https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=old-quay-haverfordwest, accessed on 5th September 2022.

3. Milford Haven Waterway – Countryside Council for Wales. Archived from the original on 5 April 2010, https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100405015700/http://www.ccw.gov.uk/landscape–wildlife/protecting-our-landscape/historic-landscapes-1/historic-landscapes-map/milford-haven-waterway.aspx, accessed on 5th September 2022.

4. Wing Commander Ken McKay; A Vision of Greatness: The History of Milford 1790–1990; Brace Harvatt Associates, Haverfordwest, Dyfed, 1989.

5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Milford_Haven, accessed on 5th September 2022.

6. Thomas Kymer is discussed in detail in Raymond E. Bowen; The Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals, Volume 1 (No. 116A); Oakwood Press, Stenlake Publishing, Catrine, 2001.

7. National Library of Wales, Francis Green MS. Vol. 6, 185.

8. National Library of Wales, Owen & Colby, MS. 2052.

9. National Library of Wales, Owen & Colby, MS. 2073.

10. https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/43, accessed on 7th September 2022.

11. https://dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/HLC/milford/area/325.htm, accessed on 7th September 2022.

12. http://www.visitsaundersfootbay.com/uploads/files/Saundersfoot%20walk%20web.pdf

13. Pembrokeshire Record Office, D/POW/H/66.

14. https://ancientmonuments.uk/129984-hook-quay-hook/map#.YxpBTR7TXTg, accessed on 8th September 2022.

15. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/welsh-homes/take-aerial-tour-river-views-11454008.amp, accessed on 8th September 2022.

16. http://www.echoeswales.cymru/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/secret-waterway-engsmall.pdf, accessed on 8th September 2022.

17. https://maps.nls.uk/view/102353015, accessed on 8th September 2022.

18. Pembrokeshire Herald, 20th August 1903.

19. http://www.ropeways.co.uk/uk/rw_ukgaz.htm, accessed on 8th September 2022.

20. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Cled