Wat’s Dyke: An Archaeological and Historical Enigma

Abstract

One of the very few published articles dedicated to the investigation of Wat’s Dyke, Margaret Worthington Hill’s article stemming from her University of Manchester M.Phil thesis was originally published in a special issue of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library published by Manchester University Press. Guest-edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker, the theme was Anglo-Saxon Texts and Contexts (Worthington 1997). Her article is re-printed here with the permission of the author and with the support and permission of the guest-editor, the current editors of that journal, and Manchester University Press. This version has been revised for style (including the removal of footnote citations and the inclusion of a Bibliography) and includes new photographs taken by this journal’s editors to illustrate the character of the monument at key locations mentioned in the text. The article remains an invaluable resource for those studying Wat’s Dyke and it might be profitably read in conjunction with the published fieldwork and dating of Wat’s Dyke at Gobowen (Shropshire) by Malim and Hayes (2008). Margaret spoke eloquently about her long-term research on Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke at the first meeting of the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory in Shrewsbury in April 2017 and attended the Offa’s Dyke Conference at Oswestry in September 2018. In this context, it is a particular privilege to include her important study in the first volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal, thus recognizing her longstanding contribution to the study of Britain’s longest early medieval linear earthworks.