It’s one of the wildest and most wonderful strips of shoreline in Britain — so why confine yourself to honeypots like Tenby and St David’s? We asked the locals to pick out some prime spots off Pembrokeshire’s beaten track.

DAVID GRAY

The multimillion-selling singer- songwriter was raised in Solva, where his mum still runs the Window on Wales craft shop

“I remember like yesterday the day we moved from Manchester to a tiny cottage tucked under a hill in Lower Solva. There was a picturesque fishing harbour outside the door, a bluebell wood behind: I was eight, and I thought, ‘This is Action Man heaven.’

“My friend Jonathan had a 15hp dinghy; we’d catch mackerel and cook it on the beach, and swim with Simo, the Solva dolphin, which sort of befriended us. It was a wonderful, free life.

“I love every inch of that coast, but I’m going to recommend my top swimming spot, at Caerfai Bay, just south of St David’s. There’s a rock stack offshore, where I’d scramble out at low tide with my mates and a bottle of cider. Locally they call it The Diver, and you can leap off into deep pools from craggy platforms 20ft up. It’s mad and exhilarating.

“These days, I like to walk there round the headland from St Justinian, where the trip boats depart for the seal colonies on Ramsey Island. I love it in May, with wild flowers piling over the cliff edge, that glittering Pembrokeshire light and the air infused with the scent of spring.

“Afterwards, I’d suggest a bite at Lawtons in St David’s: perfect for local crab, lobster or scallops — whatever’s fresh in off the boat.”

Details: for marine tours of the Ramsey Island RSPB Reserve (£20 adults, £12 children), call 01437 721911 or see www.ramseyisland.co.uk. Lawtons (01437 729220, www.lawtonsatno16.co.uk) has mains from £14.

SARAH WATERS

Born in Neyland, the author of the sapphic bodice-rippers Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet was nominated for this year’s Man Booker prize for The Night Watch

“Mine was a small-town childhood, but we always had the vast Pembrokeshire beaches for escape. I used to love driving out on Boxing Day to Marloes Sands, almost the remotest tip of southwest Wales, to cook sausages and hunt fossils on the beach with my dad.

“Whenever I visit these days, I have to go to Bosherston lily ponds, on the coast south of Pembroke. It’s a flooded valley soaked in water lilies, with bird hides and otters and almost nobody there: so atmospheric.

“Bosherston village is like the location for Father Ted, it’s so remote. There’s basically just a pub and Ye Olde Worlde Café, which sounds like it should be awful but is fab — run by an old lady called Ma Weston, who bumps between the tables serving teacakes and crumpets.

“I never tire of the headland walk from the lily ponds to St Govan’s Chapel, a tiny hermitage carved into the foot of the cliffs on a deserted cove. You have to climb down a rock-cut stairway to get there, and it’s absolutely elemental, with just the snarling waves and the gulls. I’m not spiritual at all, but if anywhere feels holy, that place does.”

Details: Sarah’s circular walk from Bosherston is about four miles; OS Explorer map OL36.

LEON DOWNEY

Thirty years ago, Leon gave up life as co-principal viola with the Hallé Orchestra to start the Llangloffan Farmhouse Cheese Centre, near Castle Morris

“I first came here because I had a vision: to play my music in a world away from the clamour of cities and motorways. So to discover the Aber Mawr valley, just a couple of miles from our house, was pure magic.

“It’s a National Trust reserve running down to the sea: you park up, cross a stile and you’re in this silent meadow, surrounded by trees. The first time I found it, I thought: ‘What a place for a concert. How would you get an orchestra in here?’ “I’d like to take my viola there, but our friends in the village would say, ‘Old Leon’s finally lost it!’ “The footpath continues into a magnificent bluebell wood, beside the overgrown stonework of an abandoned railway. It’s like a secret garden. And then, suddenly, you burst out onto Aber Mawr beach.

“My tip for afterwards would be lunch at Stonehall Mansion at Welsh Hook, also nearby: fantastic French cooking with real ingredients, in a 15th-century house smothered in azalea gardens. Locals swear by it, and if I ring up and ask if the snails are on, the owner, Martine, will say, ‘They will be now, Leon!’”

Details: Leon’s walk begins just northeast of Morfa (grid reference SM885337). Stonehall Mansion (01348 840212, www.stonehall-mansion.co.uk) has a four-course menu du jour for £27; double rooms from £95, B&B. ()

FIONA PHILLIPS

The GMTV presenter’s family home is at Haverfordwest

“My parents moved to Pembrokeshire when I was 18, but even before that it felt like home. My mother was Welsh, and I remember seaside holidays at Pendine beach, and our hired Austin Cambridge sinking right up to the windows in the sand.

“My favourite beach, though, is Broad Haven — just a shop for fishing nets, a little chippy and this giant stretch of sand and cliffs. It’s where I’ve always gone to salve a broken relationship or a career crisis, climbing north from the beach along the coast path, having long talks with my mum to put me straight.

“Winter is my favourite time: it’s a threatening landscape then, and often deserted. After a mile or so, you reach the Druidstone Hotel, big and well worn and relaxed, with a slightly hippie vibe: the kind of place you hug to yourself once you’ve found it. They do amazing comfort food, including wonderful bakes and crumbles using local cheese and vegetables.

“These days, though, we always stay at St Brides Hotel in Saundersfoot. A chap named Andrew Evans has given it a very chic makeover: it’s like Tresanton in Cornwall, all pebbles and sunlight and stunning sea views. They don’t mind families, either. Our children have taken to saying, ‘Can we go to Andrew’s for our holidays?’”

Details: the Druidstone Hotel (01437 781221, www.druidstone.co.uk) does main courses from £7.50; doubles from £86, B&B. St Brides Hotel (01834 812304, www.stbridesspahotel.com) has B&B doubles from £130.

NICA PRICHARD

Newport-based Nica is the international president of the Ladies Fly Fishing Association

“I like to fish for sea trout in the dead of night in the River Nevern — I’ll be going tonight. Around midnight is the best time, but I only wake my husband if I hook a really big one.

“It’s a lovely river, flowing through woods tucked under the Preseli Hills. In Nevern village, you get a proper sense of the ancientness of this landscape: the church has the “bleeding yew”, which supposedly oozes Christ’s blood, and a 1,000-year-old Celtic cross, the most intricate in Wales. I especially love Pentre Ifan, a Bronze Age cromlech on the hilltop a couple of miles south — like a miniature Stonehenge, except even older.

“On fishing jaunts, I can never resist the steak-and-kidney pie in the Trewern Arms at Nevern, a proper countryman’s pub right by the river. In summer, you can stand in the garden there at dusk and watch sea trout leaping up out of the water. Even more tempting than the pie...”

Details: the steak-and-kidney pie at the Trewern Arms (01239 820395, www.trewernarms.com ) costs £8.95.

Interviews by Vincent Crump

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