Borough Head

DISTANCE/DURATION: 5.0 miles (8.0km) 3 hours
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: *Puffin Shuttle 400 (*seasonal, hail and ride)
CHARACTER: Coast path, reasonably easy route but steeper from Brandy Bay to Mill Haven, 1.6 miles (2.5km) of minor road walking
LOOK OUT FOR: Iron Age hill forts, inlets with evocative names – ‘Brandy Bay’, ‘Dutch Gin’ and ‘Foxes’ Holes’, spring flowers on coast, coastal views.

The rocky coast west of Little Haven makes for great clifftop walking, with fantastic views across the sweep of St Brides Bay to St David’s Head and Ramsey Island.

Pembrokeshire has so many saints; in this case St Bride is thought to be St Brigid of Kildare. Brigid was born in Ireland in the late 5th century and founded a convent at Kildare. There is no record of the saint ever having visited Pembrokeshire.

The sea can be treacherous along this southern margin of St Bride’s Bay, but at Goultrop Roads the shelter offered by Borough Head was traditionally a safe place for vessels to ride out a storm.

Above Goultrop Roads and Musselwick Bay the cliffs are densely wooded with sessile oaks. These imposing cliffs are very ancient, igneous Precambrian rocks around 650 million years old.

Passing inlets with evocative names Brandy Bay and Dutch Gin – the route arrives at narrow Foxes’ Holes, where the cliffs change. From there on the rock below your feet is Old Red Sandstone; see the difference in the rich-red soil of nearby fields.

Just inland the route skirts what remains of Talbenny airfield. During World War II planes flew from Pembrokeshire airfields like Talbenny to hunt German U-boats and protect the Atlantic convoys that were supplying Britain.

Work on Talbenny’s construction started in 1941 and the first RAF unit to operate from the station was a squadron equipped with Vickers Wellington bombers, flown by Czechs. The station was abandoned in 1946.

Note: The path shown on the OS map leading from the Coast Path to Goultrop Roads has fallen away and is no longer usable.