Tenby Accommodation

More About Tenby

Six towers of the medieval town wall still stand, and you go in through the Five Arches. That is a fortified gatehouse with the five openings its name comes from. Inside the walls the Tudor Merchant’s House has stood since about 1500, the oldest house left in Tenby.

Boats leave the harbour for Caldey Island, twenty minutes out, where monks have farmed since 1929 and still make perfume from lavender they grow themselves. Closer in, St Catherine’s Island sits just off Castle Beach with a Victorian fort on top. The sea cuts it off twice a day, so you cross on foot only around low tide.

Two Tenby men left marks you would not expect from a town this size. Augustus John, one of the great British painters of his day, was born here in 1878. His sister Gwen, a painter too, grew up in the town beside him. When the town honoured him in 1959 he wrote back that he had always loved his beautiful birthplace.

The other is Robert Recorde, born here around 1512 and later doctor to Edward VI and Mary I. Writing a book of algebra in 1557, he tired of spelling out “is equal to” and drew two short parallel lines instead. It was the first equals sign anyone had used, and you have almost certainly used it already today.

The town museum on Castle Hill is the oldest independent museum in Wales, founded in 1878. It holds work by Augustus John, and it reopened at Easter 2026 with under-thirteens going in free.

A day here still runs on the tide. At low tide the sand runs almost unbroken from North Beach round to South Beach, and at high tide most of it goes under. If you walk round that way, go out on a falling tide and check when it turns. Boats leave the harbour for Caldey and for mackerel, and in summer the old streets close to cars.

Caldey Island is a working monastery still, twenty minutes out by boat. You can hear the monks sing, walk to the lighthouse, or spend the afternoon at Priory Bay.