Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Category: Earth Works

Ancient Sites / Devil / Earth Works / Legends

The Devil’s Dyke

Two giant earthworks named the Devil’s Dyke and the Slad, enclose and area of around 40 hectares to the South of St Albans. The area was excavated in 1932 by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and the ditch was found to have had an original depth of nearly thirteen metres making it a huge undertaking.

Ancient Sites / Earth Works / Roman

Maiden Castle

This is the largest Iron Age Hillfort in Britain, consisting of a spectacular series of bank and ditch defences enclosing an area of 45 acres. These fortifications cover the much earlier site of a Middle Neolithic Causeway Camp from around 3000BC. The camp was enclosed by two lines of ditches, the remains of which are indistinguishable.

Ancient Sites / Earth Works / King Arthur / Legends

Badbury Rings

This concentric ring hillfort dates from the Iron Age, and according to archaeologists was built to stem an invasion from the Northeast of the country.

Ancient Sites / Earth Works

Grims Ditches

Grims Ditches are a series of linear earthworks that stretch along part of the Berkshire border, to the Southeast of Wantage and Southwest of Chilton. The purpose of the ditches is not entirely clear but it is likely they had an enclosing function, to define land and protect it.