Qualla: Narberth https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Narberth https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire Narberth: Introduction https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire/ Photo credit Garth Newton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before Pembrokeshire existed - before the Normans, before the Anglo-Saxons, before the Welsh language had a written form - there was a king named Pwyll whose court was at Arberth. The Mabinogi opens here, in the First Branch, with Pwyll Prince of Dyfed sitting on a magical mound and waiting for whatever happens when you sit on magical mounds. What happens, in the story, changes Welsh literature forever. The town that stands here now is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes, and you can buy artisanal cheese and pass the cell where the Rebecca Rioters were locked up and stand outside the venue where Elton John played his first headlining show. Arberth - now Narberth - has been holding all of this at once for a very long time.

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Image: Garth Newton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/gchw-narberth-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Narberth: The Court of Pwyll https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire/ Photo credit chris whitehouse, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Mabinogi is Welsh literature's oldest known prose - a collection of four interlinked tales preserved in two medieval manuscripts but reaching back into oral tradition centuries earlier. Narberth is its most important location. In the First Branch, Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, host...

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Image: chris whitehouse | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/gchw-narberth-the-court-of-pwyll.mp3 0:06 2 full Narberth: The Rebecca Riots https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire/ Photo credit Alan Hughes, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the 1830s and 1840s, rural Welsh tenant farmers were being taxed to death by the proliferation of turnpike toll gates - gates erected by turnpike trusts to fund road maintenance, but which by the 1840s had become a punitive system of charges on a population already squeezed by...

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Image: Alan Hughes | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/gchw-narberth-the-rebecca-riots.mp3 0:06 3 full Narberth: Elton John and the Queen's Hall https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire/ Photo credit chris whitehouse, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 13 June 1970, an unknown English pianist played his first proper headline gig at the Queen's Hall in Narberth. Tickets cost ten shillings. The pianist's name was Elton John - he had just released his second album. The show was poorly attended; some accounts have him playing to...

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Image: chris whitehouse | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/gchw-narberth-elton-john-and-the-queens-hall.mp3 0:06 4 full Narberth: Little Town, Liveliest Wales https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire/ Photo credit Whatlep, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Guardian in 2014 called Narberth 'not only a gastronomic hub for west Wales but also one of the liveliest, most likeable little towns in the UK.' The population, at the 2021 census, was around 4,100. Just under twenty percent are Welsh-speaking. The town has more than seventy...

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Image: Whatlep | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/gchw-narberth-little-town-liveliest-wales.mp3 0:06 5 full Narberth: Faces From Narberth https://qualla.com/narberth-pembrokeshire/ Photo credit Ham, CC BY-SA 3.0. The town has produced a surprising number of figures. Sir Thomas Foley (1757-1833), born just outside Narberth at Llawhaden, was Nelson's senior captain at the Battle of the Nile and again at Copenhagen - the kind of naval career that ended in admirals' uniforms and quiet retirem...

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Image: Ham | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/narberth-pembrokeshire-wp/gchw-narberth-faces-from-narberth.mp3 0:06 6 full