County Echo

About County Echo

The County Echo is a weekly local newspaper based in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Founded in August 1893, it is one of the longest-running newspapers in West Wales, and for more than 130 years it has served the communities of North Pembrokeshire — from the twin towns of Fishguard and Goodwick on the coast to St Davids, Britain's smallest city, and the market towns and farming villages of the interior. Published every Friday, the Echo covers local news, council affairs, farming, fishing, tourism and sport across its patch. It was long the flagship Welsh title of Tindle Newspapers, the independent group built up by Sir Ray Tindle, and it remains a fixture of Pembrokeshire life under the group's new ownership.

Founding by Levi Evans

The County Echo was founded in August 1893 by Levi Evans, a native of Solva born in 1869, who became its first editor and proprietor. Evans was just 24 when he launched the paper, and he threw himself into the venture with the energy of a young newspaperman: the Echo was printed in Fishguard, and in its early days the business also operated as a printers and stationers, a common arrangement for Victorian provincial papers. Evans styled the paper as "Independent — religiously and politically", a declaration printed in its pages that reflected both the nonconformist traditions of West Wales and a determination to stand apart from party machines. He continued to publish the Echo until 1926, when his sons Bryn, Llwyd, Austin and Yorrie took over the running of the newspaper, with Bryn Evans becoming editor. The Evans family's stewardship gave the paper its first three decades of continuity, and established it as the voice of North Pembrokeshire.

The 1894 Broadsheet and the Early Years

The first complete surviving copy of the County Echo, dated 15 April 1894 and preserved in the British Museum, shows the paper as a four-page broadsheet priced at one penny. Like most newspapers of its time, its front page was filled entirely with advertising, with the news beginning inside. The masthead of that era proclaimed it the County Echo, Fishguard & North Pembs Advertiser, and it described itself as "the only newspaper printed in North Pembrokeshire" — a distinction it has guarded ever since. The early Echo looked very different from the paper of today: a broadsheet rather than a tabloid, set in the dense Victorian type of the age, and carrying the small advertisements, auction notices, shipping intelligence and chapel announcements of a rural coastal district. Yet the essential mission was already clear: to report the doings of North Pembrokeshire's councils, courts, churches and chapels, its farms and fisheries, and to give the district's people a paper of their own.

The Centenary and the Queen's Message

The County Echo celebrated its centenary in 1993 with a bumper edition that included a 44-page souvenir supplement looking back over a hundred years of North Pembrokeshire history. The celebration drew a message of support from Buckingham Palace: Queen Elizabeth II offered her best wishes to the newspaper for its continued success, a rare royal recognition for a small Welsh weekly. The centenary edition gave the paper's readers a chance to reflect on how much the district had changed since Levi Evans launched the Echo in 1893 — from the age of sail and steam to the era of the Fishguard ferry port, the Preseli hills wind farms debate, and the growth of tourism along the Pembrokeshire coast. The souvenir supplement, packed with archive photographs and recollections, became a keepsake for many local families, and the centenary cemented the Echo's status as an institution of North Pembrokeshire life.

The Tindle Years

For much of its modern history the County Echo has been a Tindle Newspapers title, part of the independent publishing empire built up by Sir Ray Tindle. Tindle began his newspaper business with his £300 demob payment after serving in the Far East between 1944 and 1947, buying the Balham & Tooting Gazette and then embarking on a lifetime of launches and acquisitions, many of which rescued historic newspapers threatened with closure. The Echo fitted his philosophy perfectly: a fiercely local weekly, printed in the town it served, with deep roots in its community. Under Tindle ownership the paper modernised — it relaunched its website, introduced an e-edition so that readers could buy the paper online for the first time, and moved from its traditional broadsheet to a 16-page tabloid format published on Fridays. The group's long-serving staff included Des Turner, who joined the Echo as a junior reporter in 1982 and rose to become managing production editor before leaving in 2007 after 19 years' service; he was succeeded by Lis Owen Jones, who took on a dual role running both the Echo and its sister paper, the Cambrian News.

The 2026 Sale to Iliffe and the Fowler Family

In March 2026, the local newspaper empire built up by the late Sir Ray Tindle — who died in 2022 aged 95 — was sold to a joint venture between Iliffe Media Group and the Fowler family, who had previously owned Scottish Provincial Press. The deal, which completed on 27 March 2026, brought all of Tindle's local journalism brands in Wales, the West Country, Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Man — some 30 newspaper titles and websites — under new private, family ownership. Owen Tindle, Sir Ray's son and chairman of Tindle Newspapers, told staff that the change represented the best strategy for the much-loved local brands to succeed in the long term, giving them the greater combined resources of the new owners and their experience in developing sustainable digital subscription models. The consolidation of the Tindle titles within the Iliffe group effectively created a "big four" in UK regional publishing alongside Reach plc, Newsquest and Iconic Media. For the County Echo, the sale marked the end of the Tindle era and the beginning of a new chapter under owners who have pledged to preserve local journalism output while building digital subscriptions for the titles.

Covering North Pembrokeshire

The County Echo's patch covers the whole of North Pembrokeshire: Fishguard and Goodwick, the cathedral city of St Davids, the market towns of Newport and Letterston, the villages of Dinas and the surrounding rural parishes, and the Cardigan area on the Ceredigion border. This is a district of small harbour towns, cliff-top coastal paths, dairy and sheep farms, and a tourist economy that swells the population every summer. The Echo reports on Pembrokeshire County Council and the town and community councils, on the courts at Haverfordwest, on the farming calendar of marts and shows, on the fishing industry, and on the RNLI lifeboat stations that guard one of Britain's most dangerous coastlines. Its sports pages follow local rugby, football, cricket and sailing clubs, and its community pages record the concerts, eisteddfodau, fetes and fundraisers that fill the district's social calendar. For the scattered rural communities of the Preseli hills and the north Pembrokeshire coast, the Friday Echo is often the only comprehensive record of the week's events.

Print, Publication Day, and the Offices

The County Echo is a weekly tabloid newspaper published every Friday from its offices at Parc Y Shwt in Fishguard. The move to tabloid format and Friday publication modernised a paper that had spent its first century as a broadsheet, while keeping the production in the town the paper serves — a point of pride for a title that has always described itself as the only newspaper printed in North Pembrokeshire. The paper's 16-page editions carry local news, sport, farming, property, motors and family announcements, with full-colour photographs of the district's events. The Echo is sold through newsagents and shops across North Pembrokeshire, and readers can also buy an e-edition online, a service introduced to serve the many former residents of the district who have moved away but still want to read the paper of their home town. The paper's cover price has risen over the decades from the Victorian penny to a modern cover price, but its Friday rhythm has never changed.

Digital Presence and fishguard-today.co.uk

The County Echo's website at fishguard-today.co.uk is the digital home of the newspaper, carrying news from across North Pembrokeshire between the Friday print editions. The site publishes breaking local news, court reports, picture galleries from community events, and updates on the issues that matter to the district — from ferry services at Fishguard Harbour to planning battles over developments in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Readers can also purchase the e-edition of the paper online, a digital replica of the Friday tabloid. The paper maintains a presence on social media, where its stories are shared widely among the Pembrokeshire community at home and abroad. Under the Iliffe joint venture's ownership, building digital subscriptions is a stated priority for the former Tindle titles, and the Echo's website is central to that strategy — bringing the 1893 paper's journalism to readers on phones and tablets as well as in print.

The County Echo Today

Today, the County Echo continues to publish every Friday from Fishguard as North Pembrokeshire's weekly newspaper, with fishguard-today.co.uk as its digital edition at https://www.fishguard-today.co.uk. More than 130 years after Levi Evans founded it in August 1893, the Echo still serves the same communities — Fishguard, Goodwick, St Davids, Newport, Letterston, Dinas and Cardigan — and still prints the news of their councils, courts, farms, chapels and clubs. It has survived two world wars, the decline of the coal and slate trades, the digital revolution and the sale of the Tindle empire, and it remains what it has always been: the paper of North Pembrokeshire, by and for the people of North Pembrokeshire.