Newport and Carningli

The small medieval borough of Newport is sited on the southern estuary shore of the River Nevern within Newport Bay on the main coastal route from Cardigan through to St Davids in north Pembrokeshire.

Summary

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Reference number: HLW (D) 15

OS map: Landranger 145

Unitary authority: Pembrokeshire

South of the coastal plain which is between 50m and 100m high, the ground rises steeply to the heights of Carningli at 347m which dominates the open moorland of the northern Preseli Hills. This striking natural setting and the lack of large scale post-medieval and modern development of the town and its surrounding area mean that its medieval topography is well-preserved and that the component elements of a medieval Marcher lordship — town, fields, mills, common pastures — are either fossilized in the present landscape or persist as working elements.

This Anglo-Norman landscape created by the Fitzmartin lords of Cemais overlies, but has not wholly obliterated, an earlier, native Welsh landscape of dispersed settlement. In some areas, the present day boundary between enclosed farmland and open moor has retreated from the limits of earlier cultivation, and former fields flanking access tracks to open grazing areas are preserved. In others, a mass of small square fields and cottages represent late encroachment on to open moorland in the 1830s and 1840s, a period of distress and land hunger, partially alleviated by emigration.

Higher up the slopes over a plateau of land below the crags of Carningli are hut circles and attached enclosures, with radiating boundaries of assumed prehistoric date. The drystone-walled enclosures of Carn Ingli do not conform to standard Iron Age hillfort types and a Neolithic date has been suggested. A multi-disciplinary study in advanced terrain modelling mapping techniques has recently been undertaken over Carningli Common, inspired in part by earlier work involving detailed mapping of archaeological features from oblique air photographs of the north slopes of the Preselis; this project highlighted the area’s wealth of surviving archaeological remains and demonstrated its great potential for further interpretation.

A full published description for this landscape area is available as a pdf download within the Related Articles section below.

Principal area designations:

The area is entirely within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and the Preseli Environmentally Sensitive Area. The area includes: part of Carningli Common Site of Special Scientific Interest; Carreg Coetan Arthur Neolithic burial chamber Guardianship Site; Carn Ingli camp and Newport Castle (unoccupied parts) Scheduled Ancient Monuments; Newport and Newport Parrog Conservation Areas.

Criteria: 2,3

Contents and significance:

The discrete block of upland centred on Carningli at the north west end of the Preseli Hills contains a wealth of relict archaeological and other remains, some persisting as working elements in the landscape today, and the whole representing diverse land use and organization from the prehistoric, medieval and later periods.

The area includes:

well-preserved prehistoric ritual and funerary monuments, defensive sites, settlements and field systems; Newport planted medieval castle, town and borough; dispersed post-medieval and later period settlements and enclosures.