Grim's Ditch

Grim's Ditch or Grim's Dyke (also Grimsdyke in derivative names) is a name shared by a number of bank and ditch earthworks. Enigmatic in both their naming and original function, examples are found across the chalk uplands of southern England. [See table]

Purpose and etymology

The purpose of these earthworks remains a mystery, but as they are too small for military use they may have served to demarcate territory. [Sauer (1999) quoted in Henig "et al." (2000); p. 28] Archaeologists agree that Iron age peoples built the earthworks around 300 BC. Today, Grim's Ditch forms a section of The Ridgeway, a public path part of the National Trail system in the United Kingdom.

The name "Grim's Ditch" is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and originates from Grim, one of the many names for the Saxon god Woden (the Odin of the Vikings) and meaning "the masked one". Among Woden's many roles is that of a god of war, and it may be that the Anglo-Saxons perceived the earthworks as military in function and therefore ascribed them to him.

The name "Graham's Dyke" (an alternative name for the Antonine Wall) is a variant of Grim's Dyke.

Berkshire

The West Berkshire ditch is a 5 - 6 mile section on the Berkshire Downs, the chalk escarpment above the Oxfordshire villages of Ardington, Hendred and Chilton.

Hampshire

The Hampshire ditch encloses an area of 16 square miles on the Wiltshire and Dorset borders. [ [http://www.hants.gov.uk/hampshiretreasures/vol05/page224.html Hampshire Treasures, Volume 5 (New Forest) page 224] ] The earthwork runs for about 14 miles, and is a double-banked structure with a ditch between the banks. The Royal Commission's survey of Bokerley Dyke disputed the idea of Grim's Ditch being a single monument, and suggested it was in at least three parts. English Heritage's monument scheduling suggests that Grim's Ditch may be of Bronze Age or Early Iron Age date. [ [http://www.magic.gov.uk/rsm/25610.pdf English Heritage Record of Scheduled Monuments: Bokerley Dyke, and a section of Grim's Ditch (1996)] ]

outh Oxfordshire

The South Oxfordshire ditch is a 5-mile section between Mongewell, on the banks of the Thames near Wallingford and Hayden Farm near Nettlebed in the Chilterns escarpment. Part of the western end was excavated during the building of Winterbrook Bridge, and dated as late Iron Age/early Roman. The ditch has a bank on the north side which suggests that its function was to exclude passage into the southernmost part of Oxfordshire. [Henig "et al." (2000); p. 28]

The ditch forms part of The Ridgeway footpath.

British National Grid references

Notes

References

*Henig, M., Booth, P. and Allen, T. (2000) "Roman Oxfordshire", Sutton Publ., 244 p., ISBN 0-7509-1959-9
*Sauer, E. (1999) "Middleton Stoney/Upper Heyford, Aves Ditch, earthwork and tribal boundary of the Iron Age", "South Midland Archaeol.", 29, 65–69