English: The Drovers Arms at Casmael/Puncheston A look at the map will show that numerous roads, green lanes and old tracks converge at Puncheston which acted as an important meeting and assembly point for farmers and drovers bringing animals from West Wales (and Ireland) across the hills and on to the Welsh borders and beyond via traditional droving routes. This was a tradition that stretched back at least to the C14. Henry V ordered large numbers of cattle to be driven from Wales to the cinque ports to supply his troops in France and from the C17 as many as 30,000 head were being brought into England from Wales. It was the coming of the railways that spelt the end of large-scale droving.

On the pub signs a drover is illustrated with geese which were also herded long-distance, as well as sheep and pigs. Fresh water, overnight accommodation for man and beast, and access to smithying were essential at stopping places such as this, along with opportunities for the drovers to fraternise and to make financial transactions. Sometimes their bosses (the cattle owners) would accompany the herds with horses and carts, hence the two wheels propped up outside the pub.

(Acknowledgements to The Drovers' Roads of Wales II, Pembrokeshire and the South, by Shirley Toulson and Caroline Forbes).