Qualla: Haverfordwest Castle

Haverfordwest Castle: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wici Rhuthun 1, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1644 the Royalist garrison holding Haverfordwest Castle for King Charles I heard a noise in the dark and ran. They thought it was a Parliamentary army advancing on the town. It was cows. The story is documented in the contemporary record. The garrison abandoned the castle on the strength of mistaken mooing, and although the king's men recaptured the place soon afterwards, they could not hold it. After the Battle of Colby Moor a year later, the Royalists surrendered. Oliver Cromwell himself wrote to Haverfordwest in 1648 ordering the castle to be demolished. Those letters lay unread until 1986, when they were unearthed and put on display in the town museum that occupies the castle's ruins today.

Read more: Haverfordwest Castle on Qualla

Image: Wici Rhuthun 1 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Haverfordwest Castle: The Flemish Lord

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wici Rhuthun 1, CC BY-SA 3.0. The castle sits on an isolated ridge above the Western Cleddau river, which makes it the natural defensive site in this stretch of southwest Wales. There may have been an Iron Age hill fort here long before the Normans, although no physical evidence survives at the present locati...

Read more: Haverfordwest Castle on Qualla

Image: Wici Rhuthun 1 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Haverfordwest Castle: Visited and Attacked

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Waterborough, CC BY-SA 3.0. Welsh princes did not let the new castle settle in peace. Gruffydd ap Rhys, Prince of Deheubarth, attacked it (unsuccessfully) in 1135-36, the first of several Welsh attempts to dislodge what was now an English stronghold deep in the Marches. In 1173 Henry II of England himself s...

Read more: Haverfordwest Castle on Qualla

Image: Waterborough | CC BY-SA 3.0

Haverfordwest Castle: Decay and Civil War

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After Samuel Cooper, Public domain. By the 16th century the castle was dilapidated, the gunpowder revolution having made tall stone walls less useful than thick earthworks. The English Civil War (1642-1651) jolted it back into service. The Royalists were holding Haverfordwest in 1644 when the cattle-induced retreat...

Read more: Haverfordwest Castle on Qualla

Image: After Samuel Cooper | Public domain

Haverfordwest Castle: Architecture and Aftermath

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chaosdruid, Public domain. The medieval castle's original entrance was on the west side, guarded by a gatehouse of which nothing remains. Two round towers stood at the northwest and southwest corners; a square tower with an additional projecting turret occupied the southeast. The southwest and southeast to...

Read more: Haverfordwest Castle on Qualla

Image: Chaosdruid | Public domain