Sisters House (The Gatehouse Record)

Sisters House

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Systerne House

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SN03261354
Latitude 51.78634° Longitude -4.85377°

Sisters House has been described as a Bastle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Popularly supposed to have been a hospice for female pilgrims, or even a nunnery, in the middle ages due mainly to proximity to the Commandery at Slebech and the important medieval ferry and also to a corruption of the place-name from 'Systerne' House (1546). Nothing in this large complex of ruined buildings is of certain medieval date and it is likely to have been built as a 16th century gentry house by Roger Barlow on land acquired from the Crown after the Dissolution. The Barlows ceased to use Minwear (Sisters') House after 1700 and it was leased as a farm thereafter and subject to increasing dilapidation being ruinous by the early 19th century. Now very ruinous and in woodland but 13 buildings have been identified within enclosures including the former mansion, a large barn and also a walled garden and water features in a recent survey by DAT. HJ after Ludlow, N April 2000 (Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust HER)

The monument consists of the remains of several buildings of unknown character and date, including a barn, 100ft x 25ft, with opposing entrances in the long sides. Along the eastern side are two small buildings opening onto the passage and there is also a building with a barrel vault substantially intact. The southern part of the area is surrounded by a boundary wall standing up to 12ft. Elsewhere walls stand to 20ft and more. (Scheduling Report)

Comments

Two houses of a very similar design to northern bastles beside a ruined hall, may have been freestanding or part of a larger complex. This is a site vulnerable to pirates but the resemblance to bastles is misleading.

Sources of information, references and further reading

The CADW scheduled monument record number is PE302.
The National Monument Record (Coflein) number(s) for this site is/are 30236.
The County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) for this site is/are 3594.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Dyfed Archaeological Trust, 1998-, Historic Landscape Characterisation
Books
- Davis, Paul, 2000, A Company of Forts. A Guide to the Medieval Castles of West Wales (Gomer Press) p. 122
  Smith, P., 1988, Houses of the Welsh Countryside
Periodical Articles
- Nicholson, Helen, 2002 (pub. 2005), 'The Sisters’ House at Minwear, Pembrokeshire: analysis of the documentary and archaeological evidence' Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. 151 p. 109-38
Guidebooks
- The Martletwy and Landshipping Local History Group, 2001, Martletwy (SPARC) online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Ludlow, Neil, 1997, The Sisters’ House, Minwear, Pembrokeshire: a historical summary and structural description (Dyfed Archaeological Trust Report)

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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 07/07/2016 09:33:06

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