Hotels in Pembrokeshire: Where They Are and What to Expect

Most people who come to Pembrokeshire rent a cottage, and the county's hotel stock reflects that: a few dozen places, clustered in three or four towns, with long stretches of coast where there is nothing but B&Bs, farms and campsites. That's not a complaint. It means that when you do want a hotel — a night at either end of a Coast Path walk, a weekend without cooking, a wedding party that needs twenty rooms — you're choosing from a short list, and the list is easy to explain.

We hold a record for every hotel in the county we can find in open data, grouped by town, with websites and phone numbers where the map has them. This guide is the shape of that list. We haven't stayed in these places and we don't score them; what follows is where they are and what kind of hotel each cluster is.

Tenby: the seafront row

Tenby has more hotels than the rest of the county put together, and most of them stand in one line along the Esplanade above South Beach, looking at Caldey Island. These are the Victorian terraces the town was built for: the Atlantic, the Giltar, the Belgrave, Clarence House, the Imperial and the Panorama, with smaller guest-house hotels on Victoria Street behind them.

What you're buying on the Esplanade is the view and the beach at the bottom of the steps. What you're not buying, in most cases, is parking — read the listing carefully, because "parking nearby" in Tenby can mean a public car park and a walk. Inside the walls, Tenby House Hotel on Tudor Square and the Royal Lion on the High Street put you in the middle of everything, which is exactly as loud as it sounds on a summer Saturday. Out at Penally, a mile south, Penally Abbey and the Heywood Spa Hotel on Heywood Lane are the bigger, greener, quieter options with their own grounds. There's a Premier Inn in the town centre for anyone who just needs a bed.

Our separate where to stay in Tenby guide goes through the town area by area. The full hotel list for Tenby has all nineteen.

St Davids: country houses and a converted windmill

St Davids is tiny, but it has a disproportionate number of serious hotels — the kind with a restaurant people drive across the county for. Twr y Felin, on the road out towards Caerfai, is built around an old windmill tower; Warpool Court is the Victorian house on the edge of the city above the St Non's cliffs; the St Davids Cross Hotel sits on Cross Square itself, and Ocean Haze is out on the eastern edge. Out at Whitesands Bay there's a hotel on the beach road. A Premier Inn on the ring road covers the budget end.

The guest houses on Nun Street — Glendower, Alandale, Y Glennydd, Y Gorlan — are the traditional way to stay here and are two minutes from the cathedral. See where to stay in St Davids for the geography.

Saundersfoot: the spa hotel and the harbour

Saundersfoot has one landmark hotel — St Brides Spa Hotel, on St Brides Hill above the harbour, which is the place people mean when they say "the spa hotel in Pembrokeshire" — and a handful of smaller ones in the village, including the Gower Hotel on Milford Street. The rest of Saundersfoot's beds are in the holiday parks on the hills behind, which is a different holiday altogether and covered in caravan and holiday parks.

Narberth: the country house

Narberth is the county's food town, and its one hotel of note is outside it: the Grove of Narberth, a country house in its own grounds a mile or so south, with the restaurant the town's reputation partly rests on. In town, Plas Hyfred on Moorfield Road is the hotel option and the High Street has guest rooms above the shops. Bluestone, the resort in Canaston Wood ten minutes away, is lodges rather than a hotel and is covered on the Narberth page.

Haverfordwest, Pembroke and the Haven: chains and old coaching inns

The county town and the Haven towns carry the business trade and the chain hotels: a Premier Inn on the Fishguard road out of Haverfordwest, a Travelodge at Pembroke Dock for the Irish ferry, and Tŷ Milford Waterfront — a hundred rooms, the biggest on our list — on Nelson Quay in Milford Haven. Haverfordwest also has two of the old town hotels — the County Hotel on Salutation Square and Hotel Mariners on Mariners Square. In Pembroke the Old Kings Arms on Main Street and the Coach House are the two on the main street, and Lamphey Hall is the country option two miles east. Inland, Wolfscastle Country Hotel sits halfway between Haverfordwest and Fishguard, and Slebech Park is the estate hotel on the Cleddau.

The north coast: Fishguard, Newport and the Teifi

Fishguard has the Fishguard Bay Hotel on Quay Road at Goodwick above the ferry port, the Abergwaun Hotel on the Market Square, and the Seaview at Windy Hall. Newport is guest-house country — East Street's Llys Meddyg and Cnapan are restaurants with rooms as much as anywhere to sleep — with the Trewern Arms at Nevern and Llwyngwair Manor just outside. On the Teifi, the Teifi Waterside Hotel at Poppit and Hammet House at Llechryd are the two hotels proper.

How to choose

If the beach is the point, Tenby's Esplanade is the only real seafront hotel row in the county. If food is the point, St Davids and the Grove. If you're walking the Coast Path, a hotel at either end and B&Bs in between is the normal pattern — see where to stay for the Coast Path. If you're arriving off the Rosslare ferry late, Pembroke Dock and Goodwick have beds within minutes of the terminal.

For what's actually free on your dates, use the Booking.com search on this page and on each town's hotel list. It's a paid link, it says so, and the list above doesn't change according to who pays us — nobody does.