PEMBROKE, municipal borough and county town of Pem brokeshire, Wales. Pop. (1931) (together with Pembroke Dock) 12,008. It is a walled town on a creek of Milford Haven, and con sists of a long street running from the station on the east to the mediaeval castle on the west. A stone fortress seems to have been built here by Arnulf de Montgomery about 1090, and in the 12th and 13th centuries the castle was enlarged by the Earls palatine of Pembroke who made it their chief seat. The circular vaulted keep built by William Marshall (c. I200) is 75 ft. high with walls 7 ft. thick. The Great Hall is built over the "Wogan," a natural subterranean passage giving access to the harbour. As capital of the Palatinate, and the nearest port for Ireland, Pembroke was one of the most important fortified sites of the west. Facing the castle are the remains of Monkton Priory founded by Arnulf de Montgomery in 1o98 for Benedictine monks as a cell of Sees in Normandy, but given to St. Albans in 1473. The town grew around
the castle and was first incorporated by Henry I. in 1109, and again by Richard de Clare in 1154, and its privileges were later confirmed and extended. With the Act of Union (England and Wales) 1536 the county Palatine of Pembroke was abolished and in 1835 the corporation of Pembroke town was remodelled. At the outbreak of the Civil War the castle was garrisoned for the Parliament by the Mayor John Poyer, but in 1647 he declared for the king. Cromwell himself besieged the castle which fell and Poyer was executed. The new town that grew around the govern ment dockyard, established in 1814, is known as Pembroke Dock. The dockyard was closed down in 1926.