Where to Stay in Little Haven: The Cove, the Pubs and the Tide

Little Haven is what people picture when they say "Pembrokeshire fishing village": painted cottages tipping down a steep hill to a slipway, a small sandy cove between headlands, and three pubs within a minute of the sand. It's tiny. The village is a few streets, the beach is a cove, and the whole of it is wrapped round one thing — the Swan on the sea wall above the slipway, where the evening drink comes with the sun going down into St Brides Bay.

Two facts decide whether it's the right base. The beach disappears at high tide — the sea comes up to the slipway and there's nothing to sit on until it goes back out — and the village is steep, with a small car park at the bottom. If you want a beach all day, every day, Broad Haven, a fifteen-minute walk over the headland, has it. If you want the village, Little Haven has it.

In the village

The cottages in the village itself are the ones with the view and the pubs on foot: the Swan, the St Brides Inn and the Castle, plus the Cornerhouse Cafe and the Seaside Hatch. Three of them we have now read properly. Upper White Gates is the one to beat: five bedrooms for nine a few minutes' walk above the village, the sea view Little Haven is known for, a wood burner, and — the detail that matters with a dog or a small child — an enclosed garden. Skokholm is a modern three-bedroom lodge for six a little over a mile out, which buys you quiet and easy parking at the cost of walking down to the beach. Oak Cottage is inland at Walwyns Castle, two and a half miles from the sea, with a hot tub and a games room for the day the weather turns — which on this coast it will. The rest are on the Little Haven page as listings. They're there so you can check them against your dates on the provider's site; when we've read the listings properly, the good ones will get written up.

What to look for in the listing: parking (the village car park is small and the streets are narrow), stairs (everything is on a hill), and whether "sea view" means the cove or the bay.

Broad Haven: the beach next door

Fifteen minutes on foot over the headland — or along the sand at low tide, one of the nicest short walks on this coast — Broad Haven is St Brides Bay's most useful family beach: wide, flat, RNLI lifeguards in summer, a big car park, shops and cafés across the road. The northern third is closed to dogs from May to September; the rest is open all year. The cottages we've hand-picked in Broad Haven are the ones we'd point a Little Haven enquiry at when the village is full: a seafront apartment with the sand opposite, a bungalow yards from the beach, a house for eight moments from it, and two farm cottages on the Dale road two miles back with EV charging.

The campsites on the hill

Above the village, Mill Haven Place and Redlands take tents and tourers, Hasguard Cross is the caravan park at the crossroads on the Dale road, and the YHA Broad Haven is the hostel a short walk from Broad Haven's beach — the wet-night fallback for the whole bay. The open-data list is on campsites near Little Haven.

Hotels and B&Bs

The pubs have the rooms. The Castle is the one with "hotel" in the name; Booking.com's Little Haven search returned two dozen places when we checked in September 2026, mostly guest houses and pub rooms across the two Havens. For a hotel with a car park and a lift, Haverfordwest, seven miles, is the nearest town with the chains.

Walks and the coast

The Coast Path runs through the village. South, Broad Haven to St Brides Haven via Little Haven is the classic half-day, past the sheltered snorkelling cove at St Brides Haven at the start of the Marloes peninsula. North, Newgale to Broad Haven brings you in along the cliffs from the big surf beach. In summer the Puffin Shuttle bus links Little Haven with Broad Haven, Newgale, Solva and St Davids one way and Marloes and Dale the other, so both can be walked without walking back.

The honest bit

We haven't stayed in these places and we don't score them. Where we recommend a cottage it's because we've read the provider's own listing and can say what it is; where we only list one, we say so. Pubs, campsites and the hostel are from open data with websites where the map has them. The Booking.com search is a paid link, labelled as one, and nothing on this page is ordered by who pays us. The Broad Haven guide covers the bay as a whole.