Haverfordians have looked on with a tinge of sadness as the landmark County Offices building on St Thomas Green slowly disappears to make way for the town's new leisure centre.

Many of the older residents worked in the offices, the adjacent County Library - also being demolished - and the ugly modern red-brick National Park Authority building, which has already vanished.

The building started life in 1859 as a two storey infirmary, run in those days by GPs; the nursing staff under the stern eye of a matron. MRSA would not have dared raise its ugly head in such scrubbed and disinfected surroundings.

During the 1880s an extra storey was added and a new operating theatre installed on the upper floor, with northern light roof windows for maximum illumination.

A century or so ago a caretaker with a rather gruesome sense of humour was said to have exhibited amputated limbs in the foyer and stood nearby to observe the reactions.

After the First World War, when the County Hospital was opened nearby, the building became the headquarters of Pembrokeshire County Council and remained so for the next 75 years until the new County Hall was built on the riverbank.