The earthworks of a motte and bailey castle can be seen at New Moat. The motte is about 40m in diameter and 5.0m high, having a summit area 20m in diameter; a low mound, 7.0m in diameter, set at the centre of the motte summit, is thought unlikely to represent a building, or structure. The mound is ditched and counterscarped, some 54m overall diameter. OS County series (Pembroke. XVII.16 1889) depicts a water-filled moat. The motte is set astride the eastern side of a subrectangular, round-angled bailey enclosure, about 125m NNE-SSW by up to 80m, this being defined by banks, or scarps and showing indications of a ditch, or moat. Further earthworks have been noted, some 200m to the south-west, where OS County series shows 'the Mote (site of)' (NAR SN02NE23), whilst a linear earthwork feature is apparent on aerial photographs leading north-east from the motte (RCAHMW 89-CS 548); these features may relate to the medieval borough; burgesses, but no market, being recorded at New Moat in 1326 (Kissock 1997, 132).

Source: Kissock 1997 (in Edwards (ed.) 'Landscape & Settlement in Medieval Wales'), 125-37.

J.Wiles 11.02.05