The quintessential Welsh coastal village of Solva is many things, but can it really be called posh? According to the Times, the Pembrokeshire village is in fact "popular with the posh fashion crowd who can do without the crush in Cornwall" and gave it a solid posh score of three out of five as it ranked the 'poshest Welsh villages' in the UK,
There are some key criteria when it comes to poshness apparently: a personalised number plate, at least three working-breed dogs and first-name terms with your organic butcher. The people living and working in the picture postcard village of Solva however seem surprised and rather unimpressed with the label.
One thing The Times did get right though is Solva is a pretty old fishing village with a picturesque harbour and sandy beach tucked at the end of an inlet at St Brides Bay. Located in the northern half of Pembrokeshire, it's where the terrain gets more rugged and a place which perhaps attracts a hardier type of folk. It bears a small resemblance to Salcombe on the south coast of England, which is very much posh and is consistently the most expensive place in Devon (and second only to Sandbanks in the UK), except Solva is much much smaller in scale.
It has the long harbour, which snakes its way from the grey sand at the foot of the village all the way to the raging sea, but there's no posh fine dining restaurant nor is there a butcher let alone an organic one. It does however boast TV personality Carol Vorderman as a resident. She does live in the posher part, if you can call it that, in a glass-fronted flat up on the hill above the harbour. Is now a good time to remind readers that she said, not so long ago: "One day I'll learn to posh up a bit" as she shared pictures from her holiday in Wales.
But limekilns and fishing boats remind you that Solva was - and still is - first and foremost a working harbour built on industry and toil. Yet much like the fortunes of many coastal towns and villages in Wales, Solva has had a bit of a boom in the last couple of decades as people wake up to just how beautiful Pembrokeshire is. Cue an influx of visitors and sporadic attention from The Times and its food critic Giles Coren, who appears to regularly enjoy a jaunt to the St Davids peninsula. It is apparently home to "the world's best sandwich".
The curse of the second homes issue isn’t far from people’s lips when we visit. According to Pembrokeshire Council data from 2016, just over 10% of homes in Solva were classed as second homes. That’s likely to be much higher some seven years later- the latest estimates suggest as high as 30%. We visit in the heart of winter on a bright blue sky day just 24 hours after much of Wales was battered by rain and floods. Tourists and visitors are few and far between.
It's mid-January and many businesses in Pembrokeshire close during the month to take a breather and carry out much-needed maintenance work. Even so, there’s life on the streets of Solva and a flurry of activity around the handful of shops, galleries, pubs and cafes that line the only road through the village.
In a rustically-painted cornflower blue shop, textile artist Emma Iles is coordinating a shop changeover. She is moving her shop, Seaforth Designs, from St Davids and into what was The Sail Loft. Living just up the hill, she’s looking forward to walking to work every day when she opens for the 2023 season in March. The village can be seen as one of two halves - the tourist honeypot of the main street and the harbour at the bottom and the homes and estates at the top on the way to St Davids.
Emma moved to the village 20 years ago with her young family: “Solva is such a lovely community,” she said. “It’s a special place. It’s not overly touristy, nothing like Tenby and it feels like an easy pace of life.”
Admittedly Solva isn't a big place - there’s only a handful of places for people to browse and drink coffee but those that are there are “destination places” she added. There’s Window on Wales - a shop selling lots of beautiful arts and crafts spread over three floors, Mamgu’s Welshcakes, Cafe on the Quay - an idyllic place to sit in the summer sunshine and watch harbour life unfold below, and the Cambrian Inn. Indeed, the latter place got a mention by Giles Coren where he enjoyed "prawn cocktail, Caesar salad, Greek salad, terrific ribeye and chips, hilariously loaded 'Fat Cow' burger, excellent Mangalore chicken curry and a perfectly serviceable rosé for just £21.50 a bottle".
“People feel they want to come and visit,” Emma continued. She can hardly believe her luck in getting a “dream shop” in Solva: “There aren’t very many opportunities,” she said. “This was a dream opportunity.”
As someone who’s lived in the village for two decades she says with certainty that very little has changed in that time. There is a need for affordable housing, she said, but added the the issue of housing supply wasn’t quite as straightforward as often reported.
She lives on a terraced street of 11 houses and only four of those have ever been lived in permanently during the time she’s been there. But she said there’s an important distinction between second homes and holiday lets.
Those with second homes are often born and bred from Solva or the surrounding area, and the property has been passed down through family connections, she explained. Even so, leaving a house empty for most of the year is hardly ideal she said.
“It’s not always incomers from away,” she said about second home owners. Holiday lets are important for the local economy she added: "We need them, they bring people in. But to live next door to a house with its curtains permanently drawn must feel quite sad."
Across the road from Emma’s shop is Mamgu’s which has developed something of a cult following among welshcake fans all over Wales and even beyond. There’s some uncertainty around it continued presence in Solva but for now it’s very much the meeting place in the village.
It’s cosy and warmly lit with fairy lights strung across the rafters and the enticing aroma of welshcakes cooking directly on the bakestone behind the counter. Welshcakes stacked up behind the glass screen come in all sorts of exciting flavours such as chocolate and orange, cherry bakewell, lime and coconut and even cheese and leek. Traditional remains their top seller however, says Kianah John who works as a barista and chef at the cafe.
Run by Becky Swift and Thea Noble, Mamgus started off making welshcakes at the blue-painted cafe but as demand outstripped supply, the main bakery was moved to Croesgoch and another is due to follow in St Davids this Spring.
It’s success is largely down to the fact the cafe “reminds people of home” said Kianah. “It’s very much the atmosphere," she said. "When the English tourists come down they feel they are really in a Welsh cafe.” The number of visitors in England swells significantly through peak summer but they’ve noticed an increasing number of Americans and north Walians in recent years.
Sat in the corner over a frothy coffee, Catherine Griffiths said: “Solva is quite a melting pot.” Catherine used to work at Mamgus and lives in nearby St Davids. Having grown up in Porthgain, another quaint fishing village on the north Pembrokeshire coast which has a unique story, she has her own view on the type of people who live in Solva: “It can be posh,” she said. “There is money here. But everybody gets on really well and there’s an amazing community support here.” Even so, she says she “avoids it like the plague” at the height of summer as people descend into the tiny village. It’s not unheard of the car park being full by 10am on a sunny weekend.
“It’s insane in peak summer,” agreed Kianah. “We have a staff member at the door just to control the traffic of people coming in.” The 29-year-old grew up in St Davids too but left to go away to university. She came back home a few years ago and now cannot imagine city life. “I think Solva is a settler place where you come back to when you want to make a home,” she added.
Further along the street, past several art galleries and a boutique hair salon, is the Cambrian Inn run by Marzena Barton and her partner and business partner Jeremy Barton. They’ve been there 11 years she said and every summer has been busy: “We get lovely people here with lots of returning customers,” she said. “We see the same faces every year.”
It has to be said that Solva, for something of a destination village, lacks any posh restaurant. The Cambrian Inn offers good pub grub however and is know for its fat cow and fat pig burgers, as Giles Coren highlighted to the masses.
“During covid, we saw lots of new people coming to the area,” Marzena said. “We have a longer season now with people coming in the winter, it’s quite interesting to see.” The type of customer has also changed since Covid she said although she doesn’t go so far as to call them posh. They have five bedrooms as well as the restaurant and the majority of their guests are somewhere between 50 and 60 years old.
“Trade after Covid has definitely increased but now it’s evening out,” she added. “I think it’s just going back to normality.”
The couple lived in Solva until very recently but Marzena still regularly runs the myriad of trails that seem to emanate from Solva. “I just love the surroundings and there are so many walks here,” she said. “You can see the harbour from every angle.”
The people are what make the village however: “Every time you go out someone will stop and say hello,” she added.
House prices are “ridiculous” although that’s not limited to just Solva but many of the coastal towns and villages in Pembrokeshire too. As a case in point, the house immediately opposite the pub is for sale at just shy of one million pounds. There is undoubtedly a “posh” part of the village, located up on the hill above the quay. It is blessed with the sun for much of the day and enjoys unrivalled views right along the harbour towards the sea. It was where a meteotsunami phenomenon was spotted as the tide surged the wrong way last summer.
Up there, there are several plots of land which have just gained planning permission for four and five bedroom houses being marketed for £1.5m. The sales patter is certainly impressive: "The Headlands is set to be one of the most exciting new developments in Pembrokeshire," it says. "With its proximity to the renowned Pembrokeshire Coast meaning it has a location to be envied and unlikely to be matched by any other development. Opportunities to acquire new homes in locations like this just simply do not arise and here we have an incredible opportunity for six lucky buyers." At that price, it's unlikely those "lucky" buyers will be locals.
The main part of the Solva community is up the hill, said Jeremy as he popped his head around the door. That's where the locals live and go about their daily business at the doctors surgery, the primary school and the memorial hall. It would be remiss to not mention how that surgery has recently resigned its General Medical Services Contract. Hywel Dda health board is working with Solva Surgery to ensure the continued provision of GP services for patients. Like all villages, Solva is struggling to keep key services going.
Up on the top is also where the only convenience store in the village is located, Bayview Stores run by Gwyn and Jean Price, who "epitomise" the strength of community which binds the whole village together.
Stood behind the counter is 22-year-old Aaron Gibbins who has lived and worked in the area all his life. Customers often walk into the store and say “I’ve just come up from Solva”, Aaron laughed. Even though they are still very much in Solva.
“It’s a very caring community, everyone is always looking out for everyone,” he added. Gwyn has recently added the Cwtch drop off centre in a small lean to at the side of the shop which used to house a milk vending machine. It’s a place where people struggling with the cost of living can pick up the essentials from a collection that’s been donated by people.
Gwyn felt he could do more for the community than what he was already doing, Aaron said. Because people are really struggling. It’s become a talking point in the close-knit community and people have been keen to understand how they can contribute to it.
It’s a reminder that no area is immune to the challenges out there, posh or not posh. Aaron said things got a bit posher in the summer months when holidaymakers arrived, particularly during the last couple of summers when people were forced to holiday in the UK because of lockdown restrictions.
However, in deepest darkest January, there is very little sign of poshness - not a single personalised number plate nor any dogs of noteworthy breed. There is instead a sense of strong community and pride at living in one of the most beautiful parts of Pembrokeshire if not Wales.
Read next:
- Life in the Welsh valley that's 'like the land that time forgot'
- 13 of the trendiest places to live in Wales
- The hidden Welsh village where the main road fords a stream and a log fire heats the pub
- The beautiful remote Welsh village that used to have it all but lost everything
- The tiny Welsh village that will soon see a huge £250m adventure resort built next door
