Where to Stay on St Brides Bay: Broad Haven, Little Haven, Druidston and Nolton

St Brides Bay is the huge west-facing bite out of the county between the St Davids peninsula and the Marloes peninsula, and its middle stretch — Broad Haven, Little Haven, Druidston, Nolton Haven and up to Newgale — is where families who want a beach in front of the house and nothing much else tend to end up. It's the sunset coast: everything faces west.

Everything we hold a record for is on the Broad Haven stay lists and Little Haven's. Here is how the villages differ.

Broad Haven: the beach village

Broad Haven is the big one — a wide, flat, sandy beach with the village along the front, a shop, cafés and the Broad Haven Holiday Park behind. The YHA Broad Haven on Millmoor Way is a short walk from the sand and the cheapest bed on the bay. The campsites are on the lanes inland — Creampots and South Cockett both have a camping field and a touring park side by side. Timber Hill is the lodge park on the hill above the village.

Best for families with small children, for anyone who wants a flat beach walk, and for a base without a car: the 311 bus from Haverfordwest ends here and the summer coastal shuttle runs on round the bay.

Little Haven: the cove with the pubs

A mile south round the headland (or along the sand at low tide), Little Haven is the opposite kind of place: a tiny cove between cliffs with three pubs — the St Brides Inn, the Swan on the slip and the Castle — and cottages stacked up the lanes behind. Parking is the catch; the village car park is small and the lanes are steep. The Coast Path runs south from here to St Brides Haven, and the campsites — Mill Haven Place, Redlands, Hasguard Cross — are up on the road towards Dale.

Best for couples, for people who want a pub at the bottom of the hill, and for the sunset.

Druidston: the hotel on the cliff

North of Broad Haven the road climbs and Druidston Haven sits at the bottom of a steep path, a beach with no village at all. What it has is the Druidstone Hotel on the cliff above — the county's famously unconventional hotel, and proud of it — and the Druidstone Home Farm and Shortlands Farm campsites on the farm next door. Fairview is on the lanes behind. This is the stretch for people who want the cliff and the weather and don't need a shop.

Nolton Haven and Newgale

Nolton Haven is a small beach with a pub and a few houses; Dunston Hill is the campsite above it. Then the road drops to Newgale, the county's longest beach and its main surf beach, with Newgale Camp Site right behind the shingle bank. The Newgale to Broad Haven walk along the top of the bay links all of these.

The honest bit

We haven't stayed in these places and don't score them. The lists come from open data with websites where the map has them; nearly everything on this coast except the Druidstone and the YHA is seasonal. The bay has few hotels, so the Booking.com searches on the town pages are the way to see what's free — Broad Haven and Little Haven carry them, labelled as the paid links they are.