Pembrokeshire Record Office, or Pembrokeshire Archives, is a

county record office In the United Kingdom (and particularly in England and Wales) the term county record office usually refers to a local authority repository, also called a county archives. Such repositories employ specialist staff to administer and conserve the h ...

and

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

repository located within the town of

Haverfordwest Haverfordwest (, ; cy, Hwlffordd ) is the county town of Pembrokeshire, Wales, and the most populous urban area in Pembrokeshire with a population of 14,596 in 2011. It is also a community, being the second most populous community in the county, ...

in south-west

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Although preliminary surveys of the

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

county records had been carried out by Major Francis Jones as far back as the 1930s, the initial county archivist at

was appointed only in 1963. The office was first established in the town in 1967, within the former county gaol. It is recognised by the

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...

for holding official public records and it acts as the

diocesan record office Originally within the United Kingdom the title of diocesan record office would frequently have referred to a church-owned diocesan registry or chancery. This would have been where the episcopal registers, administrative papers and title deeds were ...

for the surrounding portion of

St David's St Davids or St David's ( cy, Tyddewi, , "David's house”) is a city and a community (named St Davids and the Cathedral Close) with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales, lying on the River Alun. It is the resting place of Saint David, Wa ...

diocese.Janet Foster & Julia Sheppard, British Archives, 3rd edition, 1995, Besides keeping local authority and

quarter sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388 (extending also to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535). They were also established in ...

records, together with many Pembrokeshire

parish registers A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), ma ...

, other significant holdings include family and estate papers relating to John Mirehouse of

Angle In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two Ray (geometry), rays, called the ''Side (plane geometry), sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the ''vertex (geometry), vertex'' of the angle. Angles formed by two ...

, Carew of Carew Court and Lort-Phillips of

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

. Proposals to move to new premises within the town were officially reported in Autumn 2010. The office finally moved to a purpose-designed building in March 2013. This is on the site of the former Pendergast Junior School, with the local studies library also transferring to the new location.

External links

WebsiteOnline catalogueArchives Wales network

References

{{Authority control Archives in Wales Haverfordwest