Stackpole

Stackpole is a small estate village that gives its name to the finest piece of coastline in south Pembrokeshire. The Stackpole Estate, now National Trust, was landscaped in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the Cawdor family, who dammed three valleys to create the Bosherston lily ponds and built a great house that was demolished in 1963 — leaving the parkland, the walled gardens, the woods and the causeways without the mansion at their centre.

What the estate delivers on foot is exceptional. From Stackpole Quay, a tiny limestone harbour, a flight of steps over the headland drops into Barafundle Bay — no road, no facilities, no way in except walking, and consistently named among the best beaches in Britain. Beyond it the path continues past Stackpole Head, where guillemots and razorbills nest in season, to Broad Haven South, a wide sandy beach with the sculpted Church Rock offshore, and then to the lily ponds, which flower in June and hold otters, herons and a famous population of dragonflies. A circuit taking in all of it is around six miles of nearly perfect walking.

The village has a pub and a church and no shop; Bosherston, a mile away, has a tearoom and the main lily-pond car park. Pembroke is ten minutes for supermarkets, Freshwater East ten, Tenby twenty-five. In August the National Trust car parks at Stackpole Quay and Broad Haven South fill by mid-morning, which is another argument for staying close enough to walk in.

Cottages in Stackpole and Bosherston villages are the ones to target — you can walk to Barafundle and the lily ponds and avoid the car park scramble entirely. Estate and farm conversions in the surrounding lanes add space and gardens. Supply across both villages is limited and summer books out very early.

Minor roads south from the B4319 out of Pembroke, signposted Stackpole and Bosherston. Pembroke station, on the Pembroke Dock branch line, is about ten minutes away by car.