1. Linney Head camp is a coastal promontory fort, defined on the east, south and west by steep limestone cliffs, and by a series of constructed defences to the north. The defences comprise a system of banks and ditches some 160m in length and broken by a centrally placed entrance. They comprise of univallate defences to the east of the entrance and bivallate defences to the west, rising to a maximum height of 3.3m.
The defences to the east of the entrance comprise a slightly curving bank and outer ditch, truncated through cliff erosion at their eastern end, but with clear rounded terminals at the entrance. Here, the ditch loops outwards, conceivably creating a ‘hornwork’ that forms part of the entrance arrangement. The inner face of the bank also retains a stepped profile for much of its length, incorporating a 3m wide terrace.
The defences to the west of the entrance follow a straighter line and are truncated at their west end by an erosion face above Hobbyhorse Bay. The inner bank has a 1m deep external ditch and stands 3.2m high from the base of the ditch, whilst internally it is only 0.5m high. The ditch has a clear rounded terminal at the entrance, stopping short of the bank which continues on to create an in-turned entrance gap. The outer defence line is not parallel with the inner, but diverges slightly outwards from the entrance. At its west end, it is cut across at an oblique angle by an unusual section of bank and ditch that crosses the intervening space to nearly meet the inner defences. An erosion face at the western end of the outer defence line exposes the section of the 1m deep, flat-bottomed rock cut outer ditch, and there is also evidence for a re-cut and deepening along the western half of this feature. The inner face of the outer bank retains exposed prehistoric stone revetment. A small section of this outer western defence survives on a tongue of rock protruding into Hobbyhorse Bay and is the clearest indicator that the fort once encompassed a larger area.
The form of the gateway clearly survives; an 8m gap between the two outer ditches leads to a small enclosed ‘forecourt’ area within the hornwork but outside the main inner gate, and here stone spreads and sections of wall indicate the former existence of a stone-walled gateway passage.
The main gate leads into the interior, now 0.8 hectares in extent, which is covered by a thin layer of grass, scarred by bomb craters, except along the southern cliff edge where erosion and weather continue to expose the underlying limestone bedrock. Within the interior there is evidence of an inner enclosure, formed of a denuded curving ditch, 0.4m deep, with a centrally placed entrance, sited on the south-eastern extremity of the promontory. Its denuded appearance, together with the suggestion that the univallate defence to the east of the entrance overlies it, suggests this represents the earliest phase, Phase 1, of enclosed occupation at Linney.
There is an indication that the main fort defences may well have been constructed over three phases with Phase 2 seeing the initial construction of a univallate fort with a central in-turned entrance, enlarging a previously-occupied promontory. This was strengthened in phase 3 with the remodelling of the eastern defences with a rear step and the addition of the outer line of defences to the west of the entrance which thus necessitated a new entrance arrangement. Phase 4 is represented by the unusual cross-cutting section of oblique bank and ditch across the space between the inner and outer defences to the west of the entrance, which may well have coincided with the re-cutting of part of the outer ditch. It is difficult to speculate the reason for this late modification, principally as the area to the west is lost. One interesting hypothesis might suggest the modification and contraction to the defences here in response to cliff loss in later prehistory. Certainly the small section of the outer defence line which survives on the tongue of rock projecting into Hobbyhorse Bay is substantially more denuded than the remaining defences, suggesting they were abandoned while surviving landward defences were remodelled and made more robust.
A detailed topographic/earthwork survey of the fort was carried out by RCAHMW in August 2008.
Louise Barker, RCAHMW
2. Linney Head enclosure was visited as part of the CHERISH Climate Change and Coastal Heritage Project in March 2018 and August 2020 at which date a photogrammetric UAV survey was undertaken to record the whole monument and details of the exposed rock-cut ditch and bank.
The monument remains as described above. Waves overtop the limestone cliffs stripping the shallow topsoil down to bedrock, leaving a clear erosion edge and scattering small limestone pieces.
Louise Barker, CHERISH (RCAHMW), February 2024
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/
Sources:
Page, M., Barker, L., Driver, T. and Murphy, K. 2008. Remote sensing and the Iron Age coastal promontory forts of Pembrokeshire, Archaeology in Wales 48, 27-38.
Barker, L. and Driver, T., 2011. Close to the Edge: New Perspectives on the Architecture, Function and Regional Geographies of the Coastal Promontory Forts of the Castlemartin Peninsula, South Pembrokeshire, Wales. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 77, 65-87.