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Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court is an early medieval linear earthwork located in Wales and protected as a scheduled monument by Cadw under reference DE173. The monument comprises two sections of the dyke situated north and south of the Court, forming part of a substantial boundary work that stretches across the Welsh borderland. Such linear earthworks typically originated in the 7th to 9th centuries as territorial divisions between competing Anglo-Saxon and Welsh kingdoms.
The dyke's earthwork is preserved within a landscape underlain by Warwickshire Group bedrock, a geological formation of Early Permian age comprising siltstone and sandstone with subordinate mudstone layers. This solid geology would have influenced both the construction and survival of the monument, as the underlying strata affected soil conditions and water drainage across the earthwork.
The sections at Court represent one of the surviving stretches of this important early medieval boundary feature. Linear dykes of this era typically served as deliberate territorial markers and defensive barriers, often constructed with substantial effort to create ditch-and-bank systems. The preservation of distinct northern and southern sections here demonstrates the monument's significance as evidence of early medieval political geography and engineering capability.
Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference DE173. View the official record →
Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court is an early medieval linear earthwork located in Wales and protected as a scheduled monument by Cadw under reference DE173.
Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court dates from the early medieval period, and is classified as a linear earthwork. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is DE173.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Wat's Dyke: Section extending from Pentre-Clawdd to Wynnstay Park (5.3 km), Offa's Dyke: Y Gardden Camp Section (5.4 km), Eyton Old Hall Moat (5.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Wat's Dyke: Sections N & S of the Court stands on Warwickshire Group, bedrock that formed in the Early Permian. The rock here is siltstone and sandstone with subordinate mudstone.