St Ishmaels Tump (The Gatehouse Record)

St Ishmaels Tump

In the community of St Ishmael's.
In the historic county of Pembrokeshire.
Modern authority of Pembrokeshire.
Preserved county of Dyfed.

OS Map Grid Reference: SM835076
Latitude 51.72531° Longitude -5.13610°

St Ishmaels Tump has been described as a certain Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

The surviving motte of St Ishmaels motte and bailey castle. Castell Mound is 5m high and 12m in diameter at the top, with a surrounding ditch 6m wide. One of a large number of medieval earthwork castles erected in Pembrokeshire following the Anglo-Norman conquest of 1093, St Ishmaels was never re-built in stone. The mound is shown as a tumulus on the Ordnance Survey maps. In 1915 Cantrill described "traces of the bailey discernible in a hedge bank", which the CADW inspector felt was probably mostly modern field hedge, but that may incorporate a counterscarp bank. This could be the surviving remains of the bailey, the outer wall of a castle, which in an earthwork castle would have been an earthen bank topped with a palisade fence. The mound is well preserved,with just a little disturbance on the east side. The ditch is well preserved on all sides except for the north-east. (Dyfed Archaeological Trust HER Record)

A ditched mound, 32m in diameter and 5.5m high. AP appears to show traces of a dam to the E, which would have ponded back an area of c.160m N-S by 100m. A bailey enclosure may have lain to the S, between the motte and a mere. (Coflein)

The monument comprises the remains of a motte and ditch, dating to the medieval period (c. 1066 -1540 AD). A motte is a large conical or pyramidal mound of soil and/or stone, usually surrounded by either a wet or dry ditch, and surmounted by a tower constructed of timber or stone. The motte measures 35ft in diameter across the top and 15ft high. It is surrounded by a ditch 20ft broad. The east side of the mound is somewhat hollowed away. (Scheduling Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

The CADW scheduled monument record number is PE196.
The National Monument Record (Coflein) number(s) for this site is/are 305355.
The County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) for this site is/are 3004.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Dyfed Archaeological Trust, 1998-, Historic Landscape Characterisation
Books
- Morgan, Gerald, 2008, Castles in Wales: A Handbook (Talybont: Y Lolfa Cyf.) p. 248 (listed)
  Hull, Lise, 2005, Castles and Bishops Palaces of Pembrokeshire (Logaston Press) p. 204
  Pettifer, Adrian, 2000, Welsh Castles, A Guide by Counties (Boydell Press) p. 178
  Davis, Paul, 2000, A Company of Forts. A Guide to the Medieval Castles of West Wales (Gomer Press) p. 40
  Salter, Mike, 1996, The Castles of South West Wales (Malvern) p. 87 (slight)
  Miles, Dillwyn, 1979 (Revised 1988), Castles of Pembrokeshire (Pembrokeshire Coast National Park) p. 5-7
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 397
  RCAHMW, 1925, An inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Pembrokeshire (HMSO) p. 372 no. 1050 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Hogg, A.H.A. and King, D.J.C., 1963, 'Early castles in Wales and the Marches: a preliminary list' Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. 112 p. 77-124

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 07/07/2016 09:33:30

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