Offa’s Dyke Path

Rupert Godsal walks Wales

The 9th-century Bishop Asser wrote in his Life of Alfred about ‘a certain vigorous king called Offa’ who ‘had a great dyke built between Wales and Mercia from sea to sea’.

exactly why Offa, the Anglo-saxon king of Mercia from 757 to 796, built it is open to debate. Was it a defensive structure? A statement of power? A delineation of his border? Whatever it was for, the result is Britain’s longest ancient monument, which forms the basis of one of the greatest National Trails, from Prestatyn in North Wales to the Severn estuary in the south.

The joy of it is that it can be tackled by anyone with enthusiasm, but doesn’t demand too much in the way of fitness, equipment or climbing experience. And there’s no need to rush it: ideally, you might walk it in three sections of four days each.

There are those who insist on doing it from south to north, but I would disagree. Walk up from the beach at Prestatyn and your first feeling of achievement comes when you reach the summit of Graig Fawr and turn and look out over the sea. Somehow, it feels as if it’s downhill all the way to Chepstow—which is reassuring.

On the way is a superb variety of landscapes, views, towns and monuments. Some 14 miles into the walk is Moel Famau in the Clwydian Range; from the remains of the

‘Somehow, it feels as if it’s downhill all the way to Chepstow– which is reassuring

Jubilee Tower, erected in 1810 to mark the 50th year of the reign of George III, you may, on a fine day, see Snowdonia to the west, the Irish Sea to the north and Liverpool—and even Blackpool Tower—to the north-east.

The eglwyseg Rocks, a limestone escarpment about 4½ miles long, where St Collen killed the giantess Cares y Bwlch and including Tair Naid y Gath (the Three Leaps of the Cat), leads you down into Llangollen. The Shropshire hills—rolling farmland, woods and river valleys—was one of the first areas to be designated ‘of outstanding natural beauty’.

Further south, the Black Mountains await you: the highest part of the route is at 2,300ft, with spectacular views from hatterall ridge.

There’s the delightful market town of Montgomery, named after the Norman Roger de Montgomery from the Pays d’auge, who was given this part of the Welsh Marches by William the Conqueror; Knighton, the halfway point and home to the Offa’s Dyke Centre; and hay-on-wye, a bibliophile’s heaven.

Llanthony Priory, built in the 12th century in the Vale of ewyas north of Abergavenny, inspired Turner and was briefly the property

Wordsworth’s ‘wild secluded’ Wye valley; pop into Hay for his collected poems of the poet Walter Savage Landor, who planted large numbers of trees in the early 1800s, many of which survive to this day. Wordsworth wrote of the ‘steep and lofty cliffs which on a wild secluded scene impress thoughts of more deep seclusion’ when he was just a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

There is the occasional drawback. If you have no head for heights, you might be advised to take a detour around the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Llangollen and toiling up the Switchback might give rise to second thoughts, but, overall, this is the most wonderful, rewarding walk.

Nowadays, everyone’s friendly, so there’s no need to worry about George Borrow’s 1862 observation that it was ‘customary for the English to cut off the ears of every Welshman who was found to the east of the Dyke, and for the Welsh to hang every Englishman whom they found to the west of it’.