Whiston Castle is initially mentioned in 1147 and was reported as destroyed in 1220. The surviving remains include an oval banked and ditched enclosure, about 130m east-west by 90m, with a roughly 50m diameter, 7.0m high ditched motte, crowned by the ruins of a shell keep. The keep cuts through, or overlies, the circuit on the north. Consolidation of the motte in 1994 involved limited excavation (Murphy 1997).

An earlier origin has been suggested for the enclosure (CADW guide) and excavations about 100m to the south-west produced some Romano-British material.

Source: Murphy, Archaeology Cambrensis, 144 (1995), 71-102.

J.Wiles, RCAHMW, 7 December 2004.

An Anglo-Norman power base: Wiston Castle, Pembrokeshire, is an archetypal motte-and-bailey castle, and one of the best preserved in Wales. The 7 metre high motte or mound is crowned by the ruins of a circular stone keep and surrounded by a deep ditch. The surrounding bailey may even originally have been an Iron Age defended settlement re-used in the medieval period. The castle was probably established by an early Flemish settler, Wizo, during the twelfth century. In 1220 it was captured and destroyed by Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd, during one of his campaigns in south Wales. (Text from the forthcoming 'Historic Wales from the Air, RCAHMW, 2012).