A SEA-TO-SEA DEFENCE?
Clearly visible down in Lugg Valley is the church at Bryn Glas. The Wellingtonia trees mark the graves of those killed in the 1402 Battle of Pilleth between Glyndŵr and Edmund Mortimer of Herefordshire, at the height of Glyndŵr’s authority.
On the summit of bracken-burnished shapely Herrock Hill, the dyke sneaks off, then reappears – as is its wont – before the path leaves the earthwork for the drovers’ town of Kington.
MONMOUTH TO SEDBURY
Monmouth, with its mellowed stone buildings, has a bijou feel. You leave it for Beaulieu Woods, where wind swirls scarlet wild-cherry leaves. The path and dyke overlook the Wye, often sugared with mist, from a ridge where colourful chestnuts, hazel and whitebeam are complemented by
King Alfred’s 9th-century biographer Bishop Asser wrote that “the dyke stretched from sea to sea”. Until recently, no physical evidence of Offa’s Dyke has been found on the northern extreme of its likely route to the Irish Sea. But Professor
Keith Ray of Cardiff University has surprising news. His as-yetunpublished fieldwork has revealed several sections of earthwork near Treuddyn in the north – including at coastal Gronant (pictured), near Prestatyn – with “construction and siting behaviours typical of Offa’s Dyke”. Were these part of the dyke? Keith Ray cautions that further examination is essential before Asser’s claim can be validated. fungi – puffball, milkcap and boletus – and offset by glossy evergreens.
The limestone crag of Devil’s Pulpit juts out over ruined Norman-era Tintern Abbey. According to legend, 7th-century King Tewdrig of Gwent lived in hermitic retirement at Tintern before re-emerging to fight the Saxons. Near here, fieldwork by Professor Keith Ray from Cardiff University and his collaborators has recently revealed a gateway in Offa’s Dyke. The dyke is still divulging its secrets.
From here, in glorious finale, the path twists down to Chepstow and swoops up to Sedbury Cliffs. Confronted by the grand and shifting Severn Estuary, I found that however I felt about border control, it was impossible not to appreciate the dyke, for all its bellicose swagger, as an astonishing landmark. Ironically, one that (pleasingly to me) subsequently contributed to an evolving sense of Wales as a nation, and to the preservation of its language and culture.
Julie Brominicks