The Griffin Inn sits at the water's edge in Dale, close to the slipway, and the fish on your plate probably came in on a boat you can see from the table. Mark, who runs the LilyMay out of Dale, supplies the lobster, crab and sea bass; Danny brings more from Little Haven. The kitchen keeps things simple — mackerel, turbot, razor clams, scallops — and lets the sea do the work. There's a lobster carbonara at £36, steamed king prawns, a crab arancini to start. The prices lean towards restaurant rather than pub, and the reviews suggest people pay them happily.
Simon and Sian have run the Griffin since 2010, when they came back to their home roots. It has been trading for about three hundred years, which is a respectable innings, though less impressive when you learn it used to have company. By its own account there were once fifteen other pubs in Dale. Some accounts say eighteen. Either way, the Griffin is the last one standing, and it took a Silver in the National Tourism Awards for Wales along the way.
Everything else in Dale is arranged around the beach and the water. It's a Blue Flag beach, mostly shingle with sandy patches, and busy year-round with people getting wet on purpose. West Wales Wind, Surf and Sailing overlooks it and will teach you to windsurf, kayak, surf, coasteer or, if you insist, build a raft. The Dale Yacht Club and Dale Sailing Company work out of here too.
The village tucks into a sheltered bay at the mouth of the Milford Haven Waterway, which is a milder spot than wild, exposed Marloes just up the coast. Dale also claims to be the sunniest place in Wales — the highest monthly sunshine total on record for the country, 354.3 hours, was measured at Dale Fort, now a field studies centre.
The Pembrokeshire Coast Path runs straight through, so the walking is more or less on your doorstep the moment you leave the pub. Head out to St Ann's Head, a circular of about seven miles, and you pass the white lighthouse, drop to Mill Bay, and round West Blockhouse Point past its beacon. The other direction takes you towards Marloes and Martin's Haven, where the boats leave for Skomer — fifteen minutes across to the puffins, seals and seabirds.
Mill Bay is where Henry Tudor landed on 7 August 1485 with around two thousand French mercenaries. A fortnight later he beat Richard III at Bosworth and became Henry VII. Dale marks the anniversary every year.
The Church of St James the Great, patron saint of pilgrims, is Grade II listed. Its late medieval tower survives; the rest was rebuilt in 1761 at the sole expense of John Allen of Dale Castle, then remodelled again in 1890.
Getting here means minor roads off the B4327 from Haverfordwest, about twelve miles and twenty minutes away, with its station and shops. The 315 bus connects Dale to Milford Haven and Haverfordwest for anyone without a car.
In 1603, a writer called Dale one of nine Pembrokeshire boroughs in decay. It has had four hundred years to get worse and mostly declined to.