More information : (SJ 378113) The ringwork at Heath Farm, Amaston occupies a marshy site south of the lane, with a well defined bailey in the field opposite. It measures about one hundred feet across, with a low bank and a scarp of between five feet and eight feet. The bailey has no bank. It is not usual for ring-mottes to have baileys associated, but some instances occur in Wales, including the similar but larger example at St. Davids's, Pembroke. (SM 72 NW 26). (1-3)
Ringwork and bailey are separated by the occupation road to Heath Farm. The ringwork survives as a low platform with raised rim and depressed centre, the interior level of which is some 0.5 metres above ground level. It was surrounded by a ditch which only survives in a surveyable form on the south-east side where it is 0.4 metres in depth.
At this point the rim is 1.7 metres in height above the ditch bottom. There is a breach in the work on this side to form a modern entrance. Overall dimensions: 55.0 metres.
The bailey lies to the north-east with its points of juncture with the ringwork destroyed by the farm road. No evidence of a rampart or ditch survives and it shows as a low platform some 45.0 metres across in each direction and up to 1.5 metres in height. Surveyed at 1:2500. (4)
SJ 3794 1131 & SJ 3787 1134. Ringwork and bailey castle 100m north east of Heath Farm. Scheduled.
Extending over a considerable area to the south and east of the ringwork and bailey are the well-defined remains of ridge and furrow belonging to the medieval hamlet of Amaston mentioned in Domesday 1086 and 1379 which was deserted in the 1690s. A sample of the ridge and furrow adjacent to the ringwork is included within the scheduling. (5)
Listed by Cathcart King. (6) |