Milford takes its name from the Milford Haven Waterway, a natural harbour on which the town stands. It is a relatively modern town, founded at the end of the eighteenth century on land owned by Sir William Hamilton, but the neighbouring parishes of Steynton and Hubberston are much older, with medieval churches. Hakin, a thriving community within the latter parish, was for many years a centre of shipbuilding and the terminus of a mail service to Ireland. The new port of Milford attracted the whaling fleet and was the venue for the Royal Dockyard until 1814.The decline of the fishing fleet provided an opportunity in the late 1950s for the Haven to embrace the oil industry. More recently, as an LNG importation port, it has again become one of the largest ports in the country. The last twenty years have seen a transition at Milford from working docks to a busy marina with cafes, restaurants and shops.

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.