Everyone has heard of Offa’s Dyke, but very few people know about Wat’s Dyke. This is a similar age, being constructed in the first half of the C8th, and extending from near Holywell in the north to Oswestry in the south. Offa’s Dyke runs just to the west as can be seen from this “map.”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat%27s_Dyke#/media/File:Wat’s_dyke.png.
No-one know who Wat was or if he was a real person. It could be a corruption of wet – it can rain a lot in that part of Wales…
The dyke consists of a deep ditch on the west (Welsh) side with a bank of earth on the east. It is thought to have been built by the Saxons as a defensive boundary from the Celts to the west.
The “ditch”:http://tinyurl.com/jksbd5sy averaged 5m across and 2m deep. The bank was about 10m across and stood about 4.5m above the bottom of the ditch.
Much of the ditch and bank have disappeared, having been ploughed out. A small stretch of the ditch can be seen in the grounds of the “Beaufort Park Hotel”:http://www.beaufortparkhotel.co.uk on the edge of Mold.
It is now a “long distance footpath.”:http://www.watsdykeway.com/the-trail.html
