1. Background and description

Tower Point coastal promontory fort, Pembrokeshire was excavated by Professor Geoffrey Wainwright in March 1970 as a response to ongoing coastal erosion. The fort is defined by triple banks with intermediate ditches, having a central causewayed entrance, enclosing around 0.85 hectare. The 1970s excavations cut a section through the northern inner rampart of the promontory fort and explored a roundhouse platform in the interior.

The rampart cutting revealed an ambitious wall with two clear phases. The Phase I rampart was a low bank of clay and broken shale. The defences were then abandoned for some time before being refortified with a tall Phase II rampart wall. This was supported by and accessed from a rear walled step providing a ‘murus duplex’ arrangement. A huge amount of stony material collapsed down from the front of the rampart forming the modern earthwork we see today.

The remains of an unusual roundhouse were also excavated. This oval building, measuring 11 x 9.5m, sat on a terrace inside the fort with two stormwater gullies encircling it on the east and north sides. The house wall was merely a low bank of scattered stones and the only internal feature was a single hearth surrounded by ‘baked clay’ just inside the northwest doorway. The house walls may have been built of turf on a stone base. With knowledge of the ‘snail-shaped’ roundhouse excavated at Bryn y Castell hillfort (NPRN 95496), Eryri/Snowdonia, which was a specialised ironworking building of the Iron Age, we can perhaps reinterpret the Tower Point building as a prehistoric smithing workshop with the hearth sited to maximise draught. However the total lack of metal slag means it may have had another specialised function or was abandoned early on in its life.

Toby Driver and Louise Barker, CHERISH Project/RCAHMW, 5th May 2023.

2. CHERISH Project fixed survey markers, 2022, to measure coastal change

In March 2022 CHERISH -climate change and coastal heritage project installed two fixed survey markers (survey nails in two concrete blocks) near to The Nab Head lithic working site and Tower Point promontory fort. The markers and their associated location coordinates (BNG) will enable accurate monitoring and change detection of these sites going forward. Details are:

E2 Primary Station Marker - Easting: 179061.3296; Northing: 210904.9285; Height: 36.3273

E6 Secondary Control Point - Easting: 179048.4878; Northing: 211091.3362; Height: 20.4977

See CHERISH Monitoring Network - NH_E2 and NH_E6 control markers Event Report: 17/03/2022 for full details including Witness Diagrams (CHERISH Survey Report No. CH/RCAHMW 47 and Data Archive RCCS34)

Louise Barker, CHERISH - RCAHMW, December 2023

CHERISH (Climate, Heritage and Environments of Reefs, Islands and Headlands) was an EU-funded Wales-Ireland project (2017-2023) led by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, in partnership with the Discovery Programme: Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland, Aberystwyth University: Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Geological Survey, Ireland. https://cherishproject.eu/en/

3. New ground survey and photogrammetry, February 2025

Tower Point was visited for drone photogrammetry and new GNSS survey of the earthworks on the 5-6th February 2025, following clearance of scrub vegetation from the ramparts by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority.

Louise Barker and Dr Toby Driver, RCAHMW, February 2025

References:

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

RCAHM 1925 Pembroke, 317 [926];

Wainwright, G.J. 1972. Excavations at Tower Point, St. Brides, Pembrokeshire. Archaeologia Cambrensis. Volume CXX (1972). 84-90.

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