Castle Lake, Haverfordwest

Image: © Dylan Moore Taken: 6 Oct 2012

Now a car park, it was never a lake. The term "lake" is the early Anglo-Saxon "lacu", meaning a stream. This usage is very common in southern Pembrokeshire and in Devon, and is one of many indications of pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon settlement. The stream ran in this narrow valley from its source at St David's Well at the west end of Dew Street. The well was the medieval town's main water supply. For most of the stream's course down to the Cleddau, which it enters at the Friary, it formed the boundary between the parishes of St Mary and St Martin. The name "Castle Lake" is a (relatively) modern euphemism. In the medieval period, and as late as the eighteenth century, it was called "Shitters Lake". On the large-scale OS maps as late as the First World War, one can see the burgage plots of Dew Street and the High Street running down to the stream, with each house's "outhouse" perched over the stream.

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