Queen’s Square

Queen's Square with St. Martin's Church

The area you have now entered was formerly known as the Castleton. This, and the few streets around it, was the nucleus of the town, the very earliest area where any building took place.

After the Castle and the Church had been built, the most important area was the market place, and Queen’s Square, situated between the two was where the earliest markets were held. Perhaps here more than in other quarters there is a certainty that the area that your feet are covering was covered by people standing in the same spot nine hundred years ago.

A charter granted by King John in 1207 to ‘Robert FitzTancred son of Richard FitzTancred’ was to, ‘have as his own, the port of Milford’, but also to hold a market in Haverfordwest on the Lord’s Day ‘as it usually was’, and to hold one fair each year beginning on the 1st May, that was to last 15 days, ‘in this way not to be detrimental of neighbouring fairs’, such fair to be held, ‘well, peacefully, freely, with complete calm, bountifully and in a respectful manner’.

Continue up the narrow lane and into the...

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