Holloway and Gloucester Terrace

Leopard head on railway cottages

The buildings that we see here date from around the 1820s/1830s.

Several properties have an animal’s head overlooking the front door. These were slightly later properties built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the Great Western Railway.

Because of its position, (being as Lord Milford suggested in 1840, ‘at the land’s end’), Pembrokeshire was a little later than most other places in being connected to the railway and the line was finally opened in Haverfordwest in December 1853.

The properties that have the animal head above the front door were the tied homes of employees of the railway company.

It was Brunel’s thought that leopards were the fastest animal in the world and he wanted all of those associated with the Great Western to be thought of as being the fastest and most efficient possible (and also to show the company’s ownership) and for that reason, the heads were commissioned for every company property. Unknown at the time was that the Cheetah is the fastest animal.

At the bottom of Holloway you will come into the...

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