Milford Haven is both a town and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is on the north side of the Milford Haven Waterway, an estuary forming a natural harbour that has been used as a port since the Middle Ages. The town was founded in 1790 by Sir William Hamilton, who designed a grid street pattern. He intended it to be a whaling centre, but by 1800 it was developing as a Royal Navy dockyard which it remained until the dockyard was transferred to Pembroke in 1814.