The Swan sits at Little Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast, directly on the Coast Path, with window seats looking down over the harbour and the beach below.
It has been a pub since 1785, built by one Alexander Swann, Grade II listed, and never used for anything else. Regulars over the years ran to sailors, fishermen, and the royal photographer Norman Parkinson, who by several accounts preferred coming in through the picture windows to using the door like everybody else.
The centrepiece bar has a story attached, and the sources do not agree on it. Coast Magazine says it was built from a 19th century elders pew out of a Rhondda Valley chapel. The pub’s own listings call it a pewter bar. Those may well both describe the same piece of furniture. If you get there before we do, settle it for us.
It runs drinks-led these days rather than as a restaurant: real ale straight from the barrel, small plates of Welsh cheese and charcuterie, no bookings taken. Check the opening days before you drive out, because it is not open all week, and log fires cover the other nine months of the year.
