King's Leat (The Gatehouse Record)

King's Leat

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
King's Mill moat

In the community of Castlemartin.
In the historic county of Pembrokeshire.
Modern authority of Pembrokeshire.
Preserved county of Dyfed.

OS Map Grid Reference: SR92419880
Latitude 51.64966° Longitude -5.00209°

King's Leat has been described as a Fortified Manor House although is doubtful that it was such.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

This site lies in dense deciduous woodland towards the foot of a gentle north-facing slope at 10m above sea level. It consists of a horseshoe shaped bank, 1.8m high internally and 3m above a wide, flat-bottomed ditch, enclosing a sub-rectangular area 70m N-S and 50m E-W. The bank peters out on the north side. A gap in the bank on the northeast side may be an entrance.
Because of the vegetation cover it has been difficult to classify this site. Its location favours a medieval moated site, but its form is more akin to an Iron Age defended enclosure. (K Murphy 5 October 2006 - compiled from several sources)

An embanked trapezoid enclosure, c.76m by 43m-72m, with traces of a ditch, set on a damp valley floor, having its broad end open towards a stream on the N, and a simple entrance to the SE. (Coflein as Iron Age)

The monument comprises the remains of a defended enclosure, which probably dates to the Iron Age period (c. 800 BC - AD 74, the Roman conquest of Wales). Inland promontory forts are usually located on a ridge or spur with steep slopes on 2 or 3 sides, and artificial ramparts on the level approaches. Alternatively they may have been constructed on a promontory above the confluence of two rivers, or in the bend of a meander. kings Mill Camp is small and irregularly shaped, being defended on three sides by a 10ft high bank. the fourth side is defended by a stream. (Scheduling Report)

Comments

Has the possibility of this being some earthwork (possibly unfinished) designed for water management for the mill been excluded? Is this not really an attempt to make a mill pool?

Sources of information, references and further reading

The CADW scheduled monument record number is PE245.
The National Monument Record (Coflein) number(s) for this site is/are 305416.
The County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) for this site is/are 568; 12488 (Mill).

Books
- Spurgeon, C.J., 1981, Medieval Moated Sites in NW Europe
  Rees, Wm, 1932, Map of South Wales and the Border in the 14th century (Ordnance Survey) (A handbook to the map was published in 1933)
  RCAHMW, 1925, An inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Pembrokeshire (HMSO) p. 93 no. 236 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Spurgeon, C.J., 1978, 'Medieval moated sites in Wales: present knowledge and future prospect' Archaeology in Wales Vol. 18 p. 18-29
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- K Murphy, R Ramsey, P Poucher and M Page, 2007, A survey of defended enclosures in Pembrokeshire, 2006-07: Gazetteer of Ordnance Survey grid squares SR89, SR99, SS09 and SS19 (Cambria Archaeology) online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales, the four welsh archaeological trusts and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain Designated Historic Asset Descriptive Information from The Welsh Historic Environment Service (Cadw), licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown.
Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Lidar coverage in the UK is not complete. The button above will give an idea of the area of coverage. Higher resolution lidar images in both DSM and DTM form may be available from Lle A geo-Portal for Wales (click the preview tag to bring up a map and then select format byclicking on the small blue diamond in the top right corner of the map.)

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This record last updated 10/07/2016 04:38:45

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