Offas Dyke Path

This guidebook describes Offa's Dyke Path National Trail, a 177 mile (283km) long-distance walk along the English-Welsh border between Sedbury (near Chepstow) and Prestatyn. The guidebook is split into 12 stages with suggestions for planning alternative itineraries. With OS 1:25,000 map booklet.

This is the first comprehensive book on Offa's Dyke for over 50 years. It is attractively produced with lots of colour illustrations and maps, and will be of great interest to a wide range of historians, archaeologists and general readers. The author Keith Ray is a highly experienced archaeologist, specialising in Prehistory.

The massive ancient earthwork that provides the sole commemoration of an extraordinary Anglo-Saxon king and that gives its name to one of our most popular contemporary national walking trails remains an enigma. Despite over a century of study, we still do not fully understand how or why Britain's largest linear monument was built, and in recent years, the views of those who have studied the Dyke have diverged even as to such basic questions as its physical extent and date of construction. This book provides a fresh perspective on the creation of Offa's Dyke arising from over a decade of study and of conservation practice by its two authors. It also provides a new appreciation of the specifically Mercian and English political context of its construction. The authors first summarise what is known about the Dyke from archaeology and history and review the debates surrounding its form and purpose. They then set out a systematic approach to understanding the design and construction of the massive linear bank and ditch that has come to stand proxy for the Anglo-Welsh border. What can currently be deduced about the build qualities of the Dyke are then summarised from the authors' recent (and newly intricate) study of details of its localised form and construction and its landscape setting. The authors meanwhile also explain Offa's Dyke as an instrument of late 8th-century Mercian statecraft and the imperial ambitions of Offa himself.

This guidebook - which includes both a guide to the route and a separate OS map booklet - describes Offa's Dyke Path National Trail from south to north, following the longest linear earthwork in Britain, running 177 miles along the English-Welsh border between Sedbury (near Chepstow) and Prestatyn on the north Wales Coast. The book splits one of Britain's classic trails into 12 stages suitable for walkers of all abilities. Step-by-step route descriptions are accompanied by 1:100,000 OS map extracts. Also included with this guidebook is a booklet of 1:25,000 OS maps, which provides all the mapping needed to complete the trail in a compact form. A trek planner gives at a glance information about facilities, public transport and accommodation available along the route. The walk is astonishingly varied, taking in the lower Wye gorge, the Severn and the Dee rift valley, the pastures and woodlands of the border country, the remote moorland of the Black Mountains and the Clwydian range, and the dramatic limestone escarpments of Eglwyseg mountain. What makes it even more special is over 60 miles walking alongside the Saxon earthwork of Offa's Dyke.

Presents a detailed description and analysis of Offa's Dyke that is set against the background of the political and social context of the kingdom of Mercia, over which King Offa ruled from 757 to 796. This book offers a fresh interpretation of the Dyke's line, length and purpose. It is suitable for academics, amateur historians and archaeologists.

Offa's Dyke Path is the 177 mile National Trail following the course of the man made dyke that gives it its name. This volume, now fully updated, features the southern section of the Path, following Natural England's acorn waymarks from Chepstow to Knighton, a distance of 80 miles. This is the complete, official guide for the long distance walker or the weekend stroller. All you need is this one book. National Trail Guides are the official guidebooks to the fifteen National Trails in England and Wales and are published in association with Natural England, the official body charged with developing and maintaining the Trails.

The tale of identical twin brothers who toil on the family farm in the wild and vibrant land of Wales and experience the oddities, wonders, and tragedies of human experience.