Pembrokeshire, the beautiful coastal county at Wales’s southwestern tip, feels wonderfully Welsh, with its green lanes and wild landscapes, sleepy villages and friendly locals who like to stop and chat.
What few visitors realise is that an invisible line splits Pembrokeshire in two. North of the so-called Landsker Line, the Welsh-speaking inhabitants live in Welsh-sounding places: Abereiddy, Llandwa, Porthgain. South of the line, in an area sometimes called ‘Little England beyond Wales’, the locals have been anglophone for centuries, and the place names – Milton, Tenby, Bosherston – have a distinctly English ring.
The origins of this ‘Little England’ can be traced back to 1106, when a series of storms devastated low-lying Flanders (now Belgium). With the blessing of King Henry I, the Flemish sought sanctuary in Britain, settling in the far west of Wales. The colony grew, adopting English as the primary language and forcing the native population northwards. Many of the fifty castles the Flemish built to protect themselves from the Welsh have crumbled into ruins, but the cultural and linguistic quirks linger.
To see the powerbase of the Flemish enclave, head to
