Sores on penis back in august, in-person gp check reassured me not hsv as did 2nd online doctor after i shown him pictures of sores. std clinic pcr swab came back with hsv-1. no outbreak since. do i trust the pcr swab diagnosis or the 2 initial docs?

Trust the lab result, no matter how expert your GP and the online doctor. Even the world's top herpes experts often are wrong in diagnosing herpes based only on physical examination. You have genital herpes. The good news is that genital HSV1 usually has few outbreaks, and almost never is transmitted sexually to partners if care is taken to have no sex during visible outbreaks (unlike HSV2).

There is a small possibility of the test being false positive as is the possibility of docs being in error. If you have no further symptoms then dont worry.