Modern Times
In the course of this project we will be researching Modern Times: we are in the process of interviewing our senior citizens, collecting memories, stories, photographs, collating research and working with others in the field. Much has been lost, but it is still not too late to piece together a picture of life in late Victorian and 20th century Pembroke.
Work done so far on our Oral History Project has already resulted in a collection of memories and images depicting a way of life long gone and a time of rapid change in Pembroke: from a time, at the turn of the century, when horses were the main mode of transport to the busy car .
The changing face of the main street.
Businesses and the people who lived here change but one thing that hasn't changed is that the Main Street is special: it remains the street, our street, the only shopping street
But most to be regretted is the total demise of the port.
 |
The Kathleen and May, pictured here alongside the North Quay, was the last ship to use the port in the early 1950s. |
Geographically, Pembroke has changed greatly in the course of the twentieth century. Indeed, until the second World War, Pembroke was largely still confined within its walls and the Mediaeval layout of burgage plots was almost intact. The image below shows Pembroke around the mid century.
Pembroke, unlike Pembroke Dock, was left unscathed by the blitz of WWII. And it was after the Second World War that Pembroke was to change most dramatically: post war years saw a huge expansion with houses spilling out way beyond the orginal town. The photograph below illustrates this. After the War a huge, but greatly needed, council house estate was built on "The Green" on the opposite shore to the Castle. Another council estate was created at Monkton in the 1960s: a great deal of Monkton was destroyed in order to create this new development.
In 1972 Pembroke was designated a Conservation Area in recognition of its national historic importance and architectural merit.
| BACK TO TIMELINE |
| BACK |