River valley and village history
St Florence
A floral, cottage-lined Pembrokeshire village with a freestanding Flemish Chimney, medieval church and walks through the Ritec Valley.
- Best for
- Ritec Valley walking and village history
- Give it
- Time for the valley, church and village landmarks
- Don't miss
- The Flemish Chimney beside the old Village Pound
Photo: welshbabe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
Come inland for the walking and layered history
St Florence pairs the wooded Ritec Valley with a Norman-era story, surviving early buildings and a church with a twelfth-century core.
The village's most unusual landmark is the Grade II-listed Flemish Chimney, left standing after its small thatched building was demolished. A public footpath follows the River Ritec and an ancient drovers' road through ancient woodland and past Ritec Fen SSSI.
Where to go
Places in St Florence
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 places
Start here
The Flemish Chimney
A free-standing chimney left behind when its small, single-storey thatched building was demolished in the early twentieth century; it is the last surviving example of its kind in the area.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 20 minutes
- Locality
- beside the old Village Pound
The Sun Inn
A rustic eighteenth-century inn with a cosy setting, an eclectically decorated ceiling, hearty pub food, local ales and live music.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- village
Manor Wildlife Park
A 52-acre wildlife park with tapir, zebra, camels, monkeys and meerkats, bought in 2008 by Anna Ryder Richardson and Colin MacDougall.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 3 hours
- Locality
- at the edge of the village
Walks & outdoors
1 placeRitec Valley
A wooded river-valley walk past Ritec Fen SSSI, with moss-covered trees, celandines, bluebells and often waterlogged paths.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- from the village near the Greenhills Hotel
- Access
- A public footpath from the village near the Greenhills Hotel follows an ancient drovers' road and the Ritec river through belts of ancient woodland and past Ritec Fen SSSI.
History & heritage
1 placeChurch of St Florentius
A Grade II* listed church with a twelfth-century core and a memorial to Robert Ferrar, the Protestant Bishop of St Davids who was burned at Carmarthen in 1555.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- St Florence
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Three ways to explore St Florence
Signature outings
Into the wooded Ritec Valley
A public footpath follows an ancient drovers' road and the River Ritec through belts of ancient woodland and past Ritec Fen SSSI.
Centuries in one church
St Florentius has a twelfth-century core, later medieval additions and a memorial to Robert Ferrar.
A ceiling full of stories
The eighteenth-century Sun Inn has an eclectically decorated ceiling whose objects have stories behind them.
The village story
St Florence, from Flemish chimney to Ritec Valley
St Florence's Flemish Chimney and old cottages give a glimpse of the village's long history.
The Flemish Chimney and the settlers
Beside the old Village Pound stands a chimney with no house attached to it. It once rose from a single-storey thatched building scarcely wider than the chimney itself, until that was demolished in the early twentieth century and left the chimney standing alone. It is Grade II listed and the last surviving example of its kind in the area. People call it the Flemish Chimney, on a theory popularised by the artist Charles Norris in the early nineteenth century that south Pembrokeshire's architecture came over with Flemish settlers. St Florence in particular, the theory went, was a Flemish village.
The settlers were real enough. After the Normans took south Pembrokeshire in the twelfth century, the king brought in Flemish families whose own lands had been flooded by the sea, as a buffer between the Normans of the south and the Welsh of the north. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century buildings still stand here, several with the same distinctive chimneys.
The village pub
The Sun Inn is an eighteenth-century village pub with a cosy setting and an eclectically decorated ceiling whose objects have stories behind them. It serves hearty pub food and local ales.
For more than two hundred years, the pub has served farmers, fishermen and travellers as part of the local fabric.
Shopping in Tenby and walks by the Ritec
Tenby, three miles away, offers full shopping, beaches and boats to Caldey Island.
The walking is the reason to come inland. A public footpath near the old Greenhills Hotel follows an ancient drovers' road and the River Ritec through belts of ancient woodland, past Ritec Fen, a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Moss-covered trees form arches over the narrow, often waterlogged path, with celandines and bluebells along the way. The six-mile Ritec Walk is a circular route that can start at Penally or St Florence, passes through East Tarr Farm to the ruins of St Florence Mill, and then reaches the village.
The lost wharf and St Florentius
The Ritec was once navigable by small boats as far up as St Florence, giving the village an inland wharf, until the river silted up in the nineteenth century and the wharf stopped being one.
The church of St Florentius is Grade II* listed with a twelfth-century core, first mentioned in 1248. Inside is a memorial to Robert Ferrar, Protestant Bishop of St Davids, burned at the stake at Carmarthen in 1555.
Wildlife and the Easter duck race
Manorbier station is a mile and a half southwest, though most people arrive by car off the B4318. On the edge of the village that road passes Manor Wildlife Park, fifty-two acres of reindeer, tapir, bison and meerkats bought in 2008 by the television presenter Anna Ryder Richardson.
Every Easter the village holds a duck race on the river for charity. The last one raised just over two thousand pounds.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Photography credits & licences
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- File:St Florence - Flemish Chimney and Plaques - geograph.org.uk - 4837674.jpg — photograph by welshbabe; St Florence - Flemish Chimney and Plaques by welshbabe. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
- File:The Sun Inn, St Florence (geograph 5522885).jpg — photograph by Stephen McKay; Stephen McKay. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Flemish Chimney — visitpembrokeshire.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Church of St Florentius — heneb.org.uk other published source
- The Sun Inn — camra.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Ritec Valley — pembrokeshire.online other published source
- Manor Wildlife Park — manorwildlifepark.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation