In 1987 the old parish of Lambston was combined with Camrose and part of St Martins Haverfordwest to form the new community area of Camrose.
The original parish of Lambston comprised the hamlets of Portfield Gate, Sutton and Lambston. The last of these which, although the smallest, hosted the Anglican Church (Closed in 2013) and of course ‘names’, the parish. I don’t think we can really call them villages today; apart from a Baptist Chapel in Sutton there are no services or shops in any of the three.
Portfield Gate
Portfield Gate sits on either side of the Haverfordwest to Broad Haven road (B4341) and straddled the old parish boundary with Haverfordwest St Martins (At Tonna House) it also extends about a quarter of a mile down the Sutton lane. The ‘Portfield’ part of the name looks like a corruption of ‘Poorfield’ or Poorsfield. However Fenton links the name back to a De la Porte family who owned the land in the sixteenth century.
The first edition OS map in 1818 showed common land to the east of the parish, south of the Haven Road as ‘Poor Field’. the hamlet was shown as ‘Poorfield Gate’. The Haverfordwest hiring fairs were traditionally held on the common before the Enclosure Act in 1838 which led to the division and enclosure of much of the land.
Today the eastern part of the land is a public park (Out of the parish) and cricket club. The western part is farmland which is let by the Freemen of Haverfordwest. These are the descendants of the people who would have had access to graze the land before it was enclosed.
The road would have run just to the south of the boundary of the common and have been unenclosed until 1840. When the common was enclosed the road was confined and the narrow fields to the north were enclosed from the common.
Today the road goes principally to Broadhaven, but though the largest settlement to the west of Haverfordwest, Broadhaven is a relatively new settlement – the original main road went via Walton West to Little Haven which was a much older settlement.
Services in Portfield Gate
In the 19th century Portfield Gate had two pubs. One was called the Whale until 1823 when it became known as the New Inn until it was closed in 1957¹. (Today the house is known as Tafarn Newydd). A second pub, the Penry Arms, operated until 2001. (The name presumably being linked to that of John Penry-Jones who owned Sutton Lodge in the 1870s). In the 19th and early 20th century the village had a shop ( a second shop opened in the mid twentieth century), a post office, a carpenter’s shop and a blacksmith’s shop.
At different times there were also two chapels in Portfield Gate one, just outside the parish was a Moravian chapel associated with the chapel on St Thomas Green, it closed in 1864. The other, much more long lasting was a Weslyan Methodist chapel which closed in the 1960s.
All these services were for a village with less than twenty houses. The present extent of the village results from development since the 1980s. This was at a time when the services have all disappeared.
Sutton
Sutton is much more of a ‘clumped’ hamlet. It is set low down in the landscape, around a staggered crossroad with about 22 houses in the immediate settlement. There are no facilities today apart from the Sutton Baptist Chapel and Hall. These are at a little distance north of the village, on the Nolton road. There used to be a shop in the village which closed in the 1930s? and a school which closed in 1952.
Lambston
Lambston hamlet is on the side of a low hill and centred on the (now closed) Anglican church. Today it comprises Lambston Hall Farm and an associated bungalow and two cottages a little to the east. In the past it had more cottages and apparently (from the 1889 OS map) a Rectory. This record is a bit of a mystery. Firstly Lambston generally shared a vicar with Haroldstone West in the nineteenth century. Secondly I can find no record of a Vicarage or Rectory in Lambston in the nineteenth century. In 1910 however, a vicarage was built in Haroldston West. It still exists as a private house. Could the OS have got it wrong?