The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park was founded in 1952. After it was founded, Ronald Lockley did a survey for a path on the coastline. The region was very rural. There were villages on the coastline but communication between other villages was very hard. People often used boats to visit each other. Lockey reported on this in 1953. He suggested that a footpath be created to help. Most of the places the path would go through were public space, so anyone could walk on them without any problems. Other parts were owned by people, so you could not walk on the path without asking. They asked the owners if it was okay to use their land for the paths and most people said it as ok. There are still some areas of the path that go in strange directions because path users cannot walk on the private land. It took 17 years to build the path. 100 footbridges and 479 stiles were built. Thousands of stairs were built into the ground.