MANORBIER, or MANORBEAR, a village and a bar ish in the district and county of Pembroke. The village stands on the coast, adjacent to the Pembroke and Tenby railway, 5 miles ESE of Pembroke; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Tenby. The parish contains also the hamlets of Jameston and Newton. Acres, 3,493. Real property, £5,169; of which £125 are in quarries. Pop., 715. Houses, 151. The property is divided among a few. Manorbier Castle was built in the time of Henry I., by William de Barri, ancestor of Giraldus Cambrensis; passed, through the Windsors and others, to Phillips of Picton; belongs now to Lord Milford; appears to have been constructed in the manner more of a convenient mansion than of a feudal fortress; is now an extensive ruin, little altered from its original condition, except by the erosions of time; includes moat, entrance-gateway, parts of surrounding ramparts, and a lofty loop-holed embattled wall; and stands on a commanding site, overlooking a reach of coast. Giraldus Cambrensis was born here; and has left, in his Itinerary, a glowing description of the fish-ponds, the vineyards, the hazel-groves, and other attractions of his native place, all now quite or nearly extinct. The coast, however, is picturesque; and shows, among other features, a cromlech on cliffs at a cave, and two or three curious fissures, about 100 feet deep, in old red sandstone rock. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St. David's. Value, £125. Patron, Christ's College, Cambridge. The church is a wildly irregular ancient structure; has a N tower, in the angle of transept and chancel; comprises remarkably formed S aisle, transept, and nave-vaults; shows very curious interior arches, rising from square piers without capital o r impost; contains a monument of the De Barris; and was recently restored.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))