It is a cold frosty sparkle of a night here and the gritter has passed by andmy mind has turned tothe Victorian 'tramp', or vagrant.

Haverfordwest had about eightlime kilns at least during the C19th. On clear nights, sparks from the kilns blistered the skies, making them beacons forhomeless tramps. Many could be found huddled around a kiln and the more daring often slept on top of a kiln.

In 'Chiaroscuro' Augustus John recalls that tramps had been known to fall in and become asphyxiated by the fumes. By the morning, all that remained was a pile of ashes.

Vagrancy was a social problem. In Quay Street, Mrs Powers kept a lodging house where tramps could spend the night.The alternative was the workhouse, whichallowed a night's lodging and breakfast in return for chopping wood or breaking stones.

These tasks weremeant as a discouragement. Treffgarne stone was usually supplied to the Workhouse but when the Haverfordwest Board of Guardians met in 1913, the Clerk reported that the vagrants had complained this stone was very difficult to split and too hard for them.

The 'Pembroke County Guardian' was sympathetic, writingthat 'the poor vagrants said that the (Workhouse) Guardians did it deliberately'.

It was decided that the Guardians should approach firms in Bolton Hill and Porthgain with a view to supplying softer stones in future.

A popular song of the time was:

'Mr Rees of Cartlett Mill

Burnt himself upon the kiln,

Gave the girls a penny a piece

To rub him over with candle grease.

Did you ever see, did you ever see,

Did you ever see such a funny thing before?'