With it’s elegant Georgian and Victorian town houses, active social life full of balls and dinner parties during ‘The Season’, and transport within the town often undertaken in a sedan chair Haverfordwest had been called ‘Little Bath’ because of its elegance and elegant way of life. But this lifestyle was only for the wealthy, and day-to-day living for the majority was quite different.

For ordinary working people life was hard, dirty and precarious. Everyone was expected (and needed) to work and it often only took one accident, illness or misfortune to spell disaster and bring the world crashing down; for the most unfortunate the only recourse would be the the Union Workhouse.

And in between were the emerging middle classes of merchants and professionals often disparagingly referred to as the ‘crachach’; a group tolerated by the elite because of the services they provided but who were often quick to distance themselves from ‘working’ people.

All of these people lived in Haverfordwest and each had a part to play in creating its character but one area of life where all classes came together were the races held at Portfield. These were usually well attended events and were held throughout the 18th and 19th century, the last official race at Haverfordwest was held in April 1901; Despite racing finishing in Haverfordwest Point-to-point racing continues to be popular in various part of the County.

Perhaps the biggest obvious change to daily life in Haverfordwest during the last 40 years has been the decline of the town as a centre of commerce. Until the 1970’s Market Street, High Street and Bridge Street were crowded with shoppers with Quay Street, Victoria Place and The Old Bridge busy too. But the insistence that new retail developments were exiled to the outskirts of town has killed the town centre as people attracted to the large national stores abandon the smaller local shops. Now is perhaps the time to consider how we find new uses for older town centres as it seems unlikely there will be a resurgance of small retail businesses in the town centre.