Little Haven

DISTANCE/DURATION: 2.2 miles (3.6 km) 1 hour.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Service bus Broad Haven 311, *Puffin Shuttle 400 (*seasonal, hail & ride).
CHARACTER: Coast path – can be steep in places, quiet country lane, fields and livestock, 0.6 mile (1.0 km) minor road walking.
LOOK OUT FOR: Scenic coastal views, attractive coastal village of Little Haven.
CAUTION: Beware of traffic on narrow Coast Path.

Little Haven is a picturesque village which has a Cornish feel to it. Once a fishing community, the village is now popular with holidaymakers.

It still has a seafaring feel as many leisure sailors keep their boats at Little Haven and there is a lifeboat station tucked away in the village car park.

Little Haven’s streets are as steep as a ski run and there is an attractive shingle-backed beach. If the tide is out take time to explore the expanse of sands towards neighbouring Broad Haven and to do some crab-spotting in the many rockpools.

Since the 1800s the area has been popular as a holiday resort with bathing machines operating on the wide beach of Broad Haven. But the long stretch of coast between Little Haven in the south and Newgale in the north also has an industrial past.

This great bite out of the Pembrokeshire coast is, in geological terms, Coal Measures, rocks formed some 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period.

Coal mining on a relatively small scale has taken place all along the coast since the 15th century and anthracite was cut near Little Haven as well as at Broad Haven, Nolton Haven and Rickets Head.

Locally produced coal was then exported on coasting vessels, which were loaded straight from the beach.

Little Haven can be very busy in summer but outside the village the paths and lanes make for quiet walking.

During spring and early summer the lane verges of west Pembrokeshire are a particular joy with a huge variety of wildflowers including red campion, cow parsley and foxgloves.