NEW MOAT CASTLE

Site Details

NPRN
304446
Map Reference
SN02NE
Grid Reference
SN06362536
Unitary (Local) Authority
Pembrokeshire
Old County
Pembrokeshire
Community
New Moat
Type of Site
MOTTE AND BAILEY
Broad Class
Defence
Period
Medieval

Site Description

The earthworks of a motte and bailey castle can be seen at New Moat. The motte is about 40m in diameter and 5.0m high, having a summit area 20m in diameter; a low mound, 7.0m in diameter, set at the centre of the motte summit, is thought unlikely to represent a building, or structure. The mound is ditched and counterscarped, some 54m overall diameter. OS County series (Pembroke. XVII.16 1889) depicts a water-filled moat. The motte is set astride the eastern side of a subrectangular, round-angled bailey enclosure, about 125m NNE-SSW by up to 80m, this being defined by banks, or scarps and showing indications of a ditch, or moat. Further earthworks have been noted, some 200m to the south-west, where OS County series shows 'the Mote (site of)' (NAR SN02NE23), whilst a linear earthwork feature is apparent on aerial photographs leading north-east from the motte (RCAHMW 89-CS 548); these features may relate to the medieval borough; burgesses, but no market, being recorded at New Moat in 1326 (Kissock 1997, 132).

Source: Kissock 1997 (in Edwards (ed.) 'Landscape & Settlement in Medieval Wales'), 125-37.

J.Wiles 11.02.05