For two days in March I joined Professor Keith Ray who is conducting a unique and epic long-distance walk along the postulated and demonstrated historic route of the linear earthwork known as Offa’s Dyke. Learn more about Keith’s endeavour here. Keith’s two objectives were:

  • To follow, as closely as rights of way and developing knowledge permit, the whole course of the Dyke as built – a first for a single walk.
  • To complete field studies for a new book, Offa’s Dyke: Encounters and Explanations. This will be the first field and walking guide to help people explore the whole Dyke, including the long sections where the route differs from the line of the Offa’s Dyke Path.

Follow Professor Keith Ray on Twitter as he walks the length of Offa’s Dyke from sea to sea: https://tinyurl.com/Offaprof! As you will see, while Keith was the sole walker, he was joined most days by a range of enthusiasts, professionals and academics with a passion for Offa’s Dyke and the landscapes it traverses.

On Monday 27 March I walked with Keith along a section of Offa’s Dyke which follows closely the modern Welsh/English border. We started off at Brompton in a small bite of Shropshire into Powys (historically Montgomeryshire) just west of Church Stoke. We then headed along the Welsh/English border and back into Powys again across the Vale of Montgomery, with the imposing hills west of Montgomery upon our skyline westwards. Crossing the Camlad, we headed northwards to Hem, exploring where and how Offa’s Dyke makes a significant long-distance shift in its stance and heads down into the Severn Valley to Buttington. We ended our walk at Forden.

Along the way, we saw the monument in varied states of preservation, incorporated into field boundaries, crossing fields, and running through woodlands. We also got to revisit the famous section at Dudston Fields.

On Wednesday 29 March, I joined Keith for a second day, walking along the supposed line of the Dyke as it followed the Severn (or used the Severn as its line) to Llanymynech. After Keith completed a radio interview, we began our walk at Buttington. We headed along the Severn where the Dyke never ran or at least has not survived, before reaching Trederwen. Here we picked up the line of the earthwork and followed its varied scales of survival through to Llandysilio/Four Crosses. North of the village, we noted where the Dyke has long been subsumed beneath the modern road and we had to navigate the dangerous verge without a footpath across the Vyrnwy to Llanymynech.

While the monument was less impressive on this day, this section is crucial for understanding its landscape context and relationship with key landmarks of the Breidden and Llanymynech.

I was delighted to be able to join Keith, to help promote his project, but also to learn from him about the monument and its interpretation. Furthermore, these were stretches of the monument that I had not previously explored, so these two days filled in ‘gaps’ in both my knowledge and experience of the monument’s form, placement and survival.

Subsequently, Keith completed his c. 150 mile walk on 6 April, pursuing not only the historically attested and surviving lengths north to Treuddyn in Flintshire, but visiting further possible sections as yet not formally recognised and confirmed as elements of Offa’s Dyke up to Gronant near Prestatyn. In many ways, this latter section is the most important part of his venture, working with local volunteers to identify and decode a monument long dismissed and forgotten in Flintshire and yet which might survive in fragments. For a further discussion of these ideas, read the article in Offa’s Dyke Journal volume 3.