Gryme's Dyke is the westernmost and longest of the great linear earthworks defining the Iron Age oppidum of Camulodunum near modern Colchester, running roughly north–south for some 5 km across the Stanway Green area. Constructed in the late Iron Age (probably mid-1st century AD, with some sections perhaps post-conquest), it formed the outer western boundary of the polity ruled by Cunobelin and his successors, enclosing farmsteads, burial grounds, and approach routes rather than a nucleated settlement.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As part of the most elaborate system of dyke defences in Iron Age Britain, Gryme's Dyke marked the territorial limit of the Trinovantian/Catuvellaunian capital that became the Roman colonia of Camulodunum — Britain's first Roman colony and short-lived provincial capital. Its scale signals the political importance of the oppidum even before, and arguably after, the Claudian conquest of AD 43.
Sections of the dyke have been investigated since the 1930s (notably by Hawkes and Hull) and more recently by the Colchester Archaeological Trust, showing a substantial V-profile ditch with an inner rampart; stratigraphic evidence suggests at least two phases, with Gryme's Dyke likely the latest in the sequence. The adjacent Stanway site, just east of the dyke, produced the celebrated late Iron Age elite burial
Gryme's Dyke is the westernmost and longest of the great linear earthworks defining the Iron Age oppidum of Camulodunum near modern Colchester, running roughly north–south for some 5 km across the Stanway Green area. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Gryme's Dyke at Stanway Green: part of the Iron Age territorial oppidum and Romano-British town of Camulodunum is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Gryme's Dyke Middle: part of the Iron Age territorial oppidum and Romano-British town of Camulodunum (0.9 km), Gosbecks (1 km), Roman theater at Gosbecks (1.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Gryme's Dyke at Stanway Green: part of the Iron Age territorial oppidum and Romano-British town of Camulodunum