HLW (D) 15

Newport and Carningli  

2001  

Special  

Designated  

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. South of the coastal plain which is between 50m and 100m above OD, the ground rises steeply to the heights of Carningli at 347m above OD which dominates the open moorland of the northern Preseli Hills. This striking natural setting and the lack of large scale postmedieval and modern development of the town and its surrounding area mean that its medieval topography is wellpreserved 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. The prehistoric occupation and use of the lower slopes is also attested by the presence of a number of Neolithic burial chambers, two of which, Carreg Coetan Arthur in Newport and Cerrig y Gof just over 2km to the west, are particularly fine examples of the small group of Neolithic tomb sites concentrated in the Nevern valley, north Pembrokeshire. The tombs were recurrently used over long periods for the communal burial of the dead by the Neolithic farming community who settled in the area in the 4th millennium BC. Excavations at Carreg Coetan Arthur in 1979 and 1980 produced evidence, fairly typical for excavated tomb sites, including the former presence of a possible covering cairn revetted by a ring or kerb of boulders, sherds of Neolithic pottery and cremated bone, a fragment of a Neolithic polished axe and flint tools. The tomb was dated by a series of radiocarbon dates to about 3500BC. Good documentary sources exist for the medieval borough including rentals listing medieval burgesses whose plots can be related to the surviving topography. The famous 17th-century antiquarian, George Owen of Henllys, was lord of Cemais, and his large surviving works contain further details of the borough. It possibly shrank in size in the later Middle Ages, or there was a shift of settlement. Even with modern building of educational and sports facilities, open plots of ground remain at the shoreward end of the two axial streets of the town, Long Street and St Mary’s Street. Recent excavation has provided evidence for the processes of laying out the town and establishing the boundaries, and for late 12th- to early 13th-centuries burghal houses in those areas. This archaeological evidence supplements that of earlier watching briefs and excavations on the site of later medieval pottery kilns. It is now evident that Newport was an important centre for medieval as well as 16th century pottery production. Another recent study details the architectural history of Newport Castle. The town and castle were founded in about 1197 by William Fitzmartin, probably in the wake of the Anglo-Normans being supplanted in 1195 by the Welsh at their original stronghold at Nevern, 4km upstream from Newport (Nevern is outside the area currently described here). The castle was destroyed in 1215 by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and again in 1257 by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, but it is more likely that these sackings occurred on the Old Castle site overlooking the estuary, rather than at the surviving castle which is probably a later replacement built on the opposite, south side of the town. Curiously, the double-towered gatehouse on the north of the structure was converted into a house in the 19th century, and the curtain wall with towers rings the garden of the house. An important fair on the Feast of St Curig was held in Newport in June dealing in sheep and cattle. The fair persisted until the 1930s when old photographs show the town full of horses and stalls in the streets. Another ancient tradition that directly influences the uplands today is the survival of Courts Leet and Baron concerned with ‘the management of the common lands on the Presely Hills’. There is still a Marcher lord (or lady at present) and the bounds of the barony are still perambulated. There is 16th-century evidence for Newport as a trading post, with exports of wool replacing cloth. Slate quarries in Newport Bay were worked in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the herring fishery whilst it lasted brought prosperity. Limestone and coal were the bulk imports and limekilns were built at The Parrog; several warehouses still survive. Silting and changes in the River Nevern meant that all sea trade in post-medieval centuries was sited at The Parrog, or the sea shore north west of the core of the town, now wholly given over to local fishing and leisure boating.