Lawrenny

Lawrenny

Church of St Caradoc
Lawrenny
Lawrenny shown within Pembrokeshire
OS grid reference SN018070
Community
Principal area
Country Wales
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Police Dyfed-Powys
Fire Mid and West Wales
Ambulance Welsh
EU Parliament Wales

Lawrenny is a village and parish in the community council ward of Martletwy, in the county of Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is on a peninsula of the Cleddau estuary upriver from Milford Haven where it branches off towards the Cresswell and Carew Rivers and is in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

Description

The village extends down to the Estuary to Lawrenny Quay half a mile from the centre, where there is a busy yacht station and caravan park. It provides most of the central rural facilities for the Martletwy ward, including a shop, mobile post office, cricket and football clubs, village hall and church. The community owns and operates the Millennium Youth Hostel and the village shop.

The Lawrenny Arms and the Quayside Tearooms have recently become popular destinations in the area for both boaters and walkers, being on the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park footpath.

The village has its own community-run broadband service which provides Internet access across the village as well as to communities on the other side of the Cleddau Estuary.

The community village shop operates what is possibly a world first: an automated service that allows members to access 24 hours to buy essentials. The system was featured on ITV Wales news in 2016.

The village also starred in Penelope Keith's Hidden Villages, a series that aired on the UK's Channel 4 in 2016.

In summer, the river is full of boats, where activities include dinghy sailing and water-skiing. It has been the host port for Seafair Haven, a biennial festival of the sea on the Milford Haven waterway, in 2014 and 2016.

History

Lawrenny developed around fishing, boat building and as a staging point for quarried limestone extracted from quarries upriver. In the 1830s there were 422 inhabitants[1] and there was a ferry over the Cresswell River.[2]

Racing stables in the village provided Wales' first and only Grand National winner,[3] Kirkland, at Aintree in 1905.

Lawrenny played a role in the Second World War as a base for Walrus seaplanes and a training centre, known as HMS Daedalus II, operated by the Fleet Air Arm.[4]

Lawrenny was voted best village in Wales in 2007 (a competition run by Calor).

Church

The parish[5] church of St Caradoc is a grade II* listed building founded in the 12th century and altered considerably since, principally in the 19th century. The tower was added in the 15th century.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "GENUKI: Lawrenny (1833)". Retrieved 16 September 2016.
  2. ↑ "GENUKI: Parish map 132". Retrieved 16 September 2016.
  3. ↑ Wales' first and only Grand National winner
  4. ↑ Pembrokeshire Military History
  5. ↑ "GENUKI: Lawrenny". Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  6. ↑ "Church of St Caradoc, Martletwy". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
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