Haverfordwest, the county town of Pembrokeshire, was founded around 900 years ago. The town itself has three medieval parish churches and a priory, now ruined, reflecting the wealth and significance of the town in the Middle Ages. In 1791 it was described by a visitor as a 'Little Bath' and several of its Georgian buildings have survived. Until the arrival of the railway in the mid-nineteenth century the town was a major port. The shops of Haverfordwest were many and varied, and local enterprise mingled with national stores, but over the last thirty years traffic priority and the growth of out-of town shopping have severely impacted on the town centre. The history of the town has been well documented and its development has been recorded in many prints, postcards and photographs. This book provides a unique opportunity to compare those images with the views we see today.

Patricia Swales Barker is a music graduate and teacher who was a director of her family's music shop in High Street, Haverfordwest, until retiring in 2006. An enthusiastic local and family historian (MA in Local History in 2002) who has researched and written widely about the history of town's civic church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. She has also studied the musical and cultural history of the area as well as the commercial and social history of the shops and shopkeepers of the town. She lives in Haverfordwest.