1. Deer Park or Wooltack Point is a vast 22ha coastal cliff-girt plateau that has been cut off by earthen ramparts to form one of the largest Iron Age promontory forts in Wales. The name probably derives from an intended, albeit unlikely, deer park. The ramparts run along the lip of the north-south valley that delimits the plateau on the landward side. They consist of a large bank, sometimes ditched, some 268m long that merges with the natural slopes to the north. Access was at the upper southern end of the valley. Here there are two entrances, one, slighly inturned, some 65m from the southern cliffs, and the second, immediately north of the cliff, opening onto a small, roughly rectangular enclosure about 72m north-south by 32m.
It is possible that the fort was adapted as a park pale.

John Wiles 15.01.08

2. Additional field boundaries and cultivation ridges have been noted within the fort to the south-west and on the north sides, during RCAHMW aerial reconnaissance. Archaeological reconnaissance on 3rd March also discovered a promontory enclosure, possibly of Iron Age date, enclosing the north-west rocky promontory of Wooltack Point within the larger 22ha main fort (see NPRN 413598). A more detailed analysis was carried out from LiDAR data by Oliver Davis in 2011 (Davis 2011). 

T. Driver, RCAHMW, 6 April 2011.

3. A probable Iron Age settlement which exploits the excellent natural defences of the large coastal promontory. It is protected by steep cliffs on every side except at the E where a N-S valley acts as a partial natural barrier. The site itself is basically the defensive bank which cuts across the isthmus at approximately its narrowest point forming the large promontory fort within the area of the later deer park (if such it was). The southern half of the bank is the more prominent, ie where the natural defences are weakest. Here the bank is as much as 3.5m high with a ditch on the outer (E) side about 1m deep with an overall width of 6m. This bank gradually recedes in scale to the N to a bank about 1.5m high over a width of 5m, where the slight valley becomes a steep sided feature leading down to the sheltered cove of Martin's haven. At the S end is an additional feature within the fort. An 'L' shaped bank about 1.5m high (max) approaches the defensive bank at one end and the cliff edge at the other forming a kind of small enclosure - probably an entrance feature. There is a second entrance 75m to the N with a slight in turn. Within the defended area, which is quite large (ca 25 hectares) there is no sign of any habitation, however any traces could easily be covered by the dense gorse and bracken. A few flint flakes were found within the site including a white ridge-backed flake, found in the SE corner of the enclosure (Cantrill, 1915, 180). This find is probably not significant to the site itself.

John Latham RCAHMW 21 August 2018
Source: John Latham. 1991. National Trust Archaeological Survey, Marloes, Parish of Marloes, Pembrokeshire.

4. Fieldwork during the Skomer Island project by Louise Barker (RCAHMW) and Bob Johnston (University of Sheffield) demonstrated that the very long north-south rampart that cuts off the promontory infact descends sharply down to Martin's Haven on the north side, apparently becoming a double earthwork like a trackway in places. One interpretation is that the defences oversee, protect and monumentalise the obvious landing point at Martin's Haven for maritime traffic.

It has also been noted by Toby Driver that the very direct, unwavering linear arrangement of the isthmus defences, cutting off an expansive coastal promontory, contrast sharply with many of the curving or multivallate defences found at other Pembrokeshire coastal promontory forts. In plan and character, the Deer Park defences have much in common with those at Drumanagh coastal promontory fort, Dublin Bay, Ireland, and also Hengistbury Head on the Dorset coast, both sites famed as coastal ports of trade in later prehistoric and Roman times (see Driver 2023, Chapter 7).

T. Driver, RCAHMW, 2024.

References:

Davis, O. 2011. A LiDAR survey of Skokholm Island, Gateholm Islet and the Marloes Peninsular, Pembrokeshire, Archaeologia Cambrensis 160, 115-132

Driver, T. 2023. The Hillforts of Iron Age Wales. Logaston Press.