Lamphey

The Dial Inn

The Dial Inn takes its name from a sundial. The building was a private house called Dial House until 1967, when a man named Wally Howells converted it into a pub, and the sundial stayed in the name if not always on the wall. It is the sort of place that has been added to steadily over decades — a games room here, a dining room there, most recently a copper bar — so that the whole thing now sprawls comfortably outward into a large beer garden with a marquee and a view of the countryside.

The kitchen is run by Lee Newman, who sources ingredients from as close to Pembrokeshire as he can manage. You'll find beer-battered cod with double-cooked chips, a mixed grill, pork steaks in peppercorn sauce, and a sticky toffee pudding served with miso caramel, which is a slightly more ambitious note than you might expect from a village local. It is rated 4.6 on Tripadvisor and holds the number one spot of three restaurants in Lamphey, though there are only three to hold. One reviewer called it "Best pub in the area." The beer is real ale, CAMRA-listed, and by all accounts reasonably priced. Dogs are welcome in the bar, in part of the restaurant, and in the garden.

Village life and transport

Beyond the pub the village keeps a bakery, a hairdresser, a garage, a primary school and a village hall that holds 120 people. The hall was finished in 2007, replacing a building that started life in the First World War as a medical centre.

Lamphey has its own railway station, in the village, though "station" oversells it slightly — trains stop on request, roughly every two hours in each direction, west to Pembroke Dock and east toward Tenby, which is about twenty minutes away. If nobody flags the train and nobody's getting off, it carries on. The village sits two miles east of Pembroke on the A4139, and the 349 bus and the Coastal Cruiser both call here.

Walks to the coast

The walking runs down to the coast. The Station Walk is a circular that drops out of the village to Freshwater East beach — a curve of golden sand and dunes two miles south — and comes back through rolling farmland and scraps of woodland. The Westhill Lane route is 2.9 miles of fields, livestock, six stiles and mud in places. From Freshwater East the Wales Coast Path runs east toward Manorbier and west toward Swanlake Bay.

Lamphey Bishop's Palace

The ruins on the edge of the village are what remain of Lamphey Bishop's Palace, once a country retreat for the bishops of St David's. Bishop Henry de Gower built the great hall in the fourteenth century, and the place grew to more than twenty rooms with fishponds, orchards, herb gardens and its own deer park. Cadw looks after it now. The bishops, one source notes, used it "as a country retreat, an escape from the burdens of Church and State."

Cricket across generations

The cricket club fields two men's sides and, new for 2026, girls' teams at under-12 and under-14. Below them a junior section is growing, running all the way from under-9s up to under-15s.