The Berkhamsted Common earthworks comprise a complex of banks, ditches and enclosures on the high ground of the Chiltern dip slope above the Bulbourne valley, including features long known as "Grim's Ditch" and a series of rectilinear enclosures interpreted as a Romano-British settlement and associated field system. Activity here appears to span the later Iron Age into the Roman period (broadly 1st–4th century AD), representing a continuity of native settlement on the wooded Chiltern uplands rather than a planned Roman foundation.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site lies in the hinterland of Verulamium (St Albans), within the territory of the Catuvellauni, and exemplifies the dispersed pattern of upland Chiltern farmsteads and linear boundary works that defined territorial organisation in this region. Grim's Ditch on the Common is part of a wider Chiltern system of linear earthworks whose dating and function (estate boundary, droveway, late Iron Age territorial marker) remain debated.
The earthworks have been surveyed repeatedly — notably by the RCHME and more recently in landscape surveys by the National Trust, who own much of the Common — recording enclosure banks, hollow-ways and the line of Grim's Ditch, with surface finds of Romano-British pottery and tile indicating settlement activity. No large-scale modern excavation has been published, so the internal chronology, layout and status of the settlement rem
The Berkhamsted Common earthworks comprise a complex of banks, ditches and enclosures on the high ground of the Chiltern dip slope above the Bulbourne valley, including features long known as "Grim's Ditch" and a series of rectilinear enclosures interpreted as a Romano-British settlement and associated field system. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Romano-British settlement and earthworks on Berkhamsted Common 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 Roman site on Moneybury Hill (2.2 km), Roman settlement at the Cow Roast Inn (2.3 km), Northchurch (2.5 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 Romano-British settlement and earthworks on Berkhamsted Common