Medieval Pembroke

The castle, at the western end of the town was originally an earthwork. However in its shadow grew a town which rapidly grew to become the military adn administrative centre of South West Wales.

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The new settlement was threatened for the Welsh were constantly attempting to regain their lands and evict the Norman invaders.  Pembroke Castle held firm: it was never to fall to the Welsh.

Royal Charters

It was granted a charter of privileges by Henry I c1130 (no copy exists)but ths was followed by a second charter under Henry II which confirmed “to my burgesses of Pembroke all their liberties, immunities & free customs as freely as they had them in the time of King Henry, my grandfather”

Under the terms of its charters all merchant ships were required to report to the customs house in Pembroke making it the centre of trade for the whole of the Milford Haven Waterway.

King John In the first year of his reign 1199 granted a new charter to the Borough of Pembroke, confirming the charter made by his father in 1154. He also gave Pembroke Castle mill to the Knights Templars. 

Little England Beyond Wales

In order to secure this area still further, Henry I, as well as encouraging English settlement, transferred Flemish settlers, many of whom had come over to England some time before.  It was claimed that England contained so many of these Flemings, who had come over in his father’s time from national relationship to his mother, that the country was overburdened with them.  These newcomers soon mastered the English language for their own tongue was very similar.  They settled in villages to which they gave English names. The Welsh language was displaced entirely, so that even to-day this part of Pembrokeshire is called “Little England beyond Wales”.

In an act of ethnic cleansing, the Welsh were turned off their land to make room for them.

Growth of the Town

As town grew people demanded protection: not only was the castle strenghtened but walls were built around the thriiving town. The present day walls were built in the late thirteenth/ fourteenth century when the Earldom of Pembroke was in the tenure of William de Valence and his wife Joan, who had inherited it from her grandfather William Marshall. Pembroke originally possessed 3 gates – Eastgate, Westgate & North Gate. While parts of the walls remain, sadly the gates have gone.

	At the end of the old houses of Westgate, this piece of the Town Wall is all that remains of the West Gate.
Until anout 1820 Pembroke still retained the superb North Gate on the South Quay.  Unfortunately it impeded the growing traffic (in the form of horse drawn vehicles) and was demolished.
	Each tower along the perimeter of the walls was the responsibility of a local feudal lord.  The lord of Carew was responsible for the north-eastern tower of the circuit, Barnard’s Tower, and the Lord of Manorbier guarded the Eastgate.
Of Eastgate, nothing remains

So in its Mediaeval heyday, we see the foundation of the borough, the granting of privileges to the burgesses by the Crown and marked growth until a total of about 228 burgage plots had been taken up.  Many present-day houses and gardens within the walls of the town stand on the sites of these medieval burgage plots. 

Royal Visits

In 1172 Henry I stayed at Pembroke on the eve of the Irish Invasion and on his return.

In 1210 King John appeared at Pembroke, having previously sent there a large force by sea.  He summoned the Flemish soldiery to South Pembrokeshire to meet him at Holy Cross.  Probably this was the cross which stood outside the east gate of the town, near a hospital dedicated to St Mary Magdalen, later to be known as Marlan’s Chapel (Fenton).  It is said that Kings Bridge is so named because the army camped there at this time.

John appears to have made this journey to Pembroke en route to Ireland in pursuit of William de Broase and his wife Maud de Broase.  She was captured and sent with her eldest son to Windsor, where it is said they were starved to death.

1349 Disaster Strikes - The Plague

In 1349 a severe epidemic of bubonic plague hit Britain The heavy death rate in Pembroke devestated the town and wiped out whole families. Many houses fell into ruin, trade declined, and the economy stagnated.  Even in 1540 Leland was to write of Pembroke “the est suburbe hath been about as great as the town, but now it is totally yn ruine”.

The period of expansion was brought to an end - as the new age, represented by the rise of the Tudors, dawns, Pembroke was suffering a severe depression.