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The Chiltern Grim's Ditch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

James F. Dyer
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Extract

In 1931 Dr O. G. S. Crawford published his survey of the Chiltern Grim’s Ditch in ANTIQUITY, and in the following issue Mr M. W. Hughes related it to Cuthwulf’s expedition to the Chilterns in A.D. 571. It is my intention in this paper to show that Mr Hughes had no evidence for so dating the earthwork and to demonstrate that it most probably belongs to the Iron Age. Closer study on the ground has shown that it is cut by two Roman roads, and is more extensive than Crawford realized, although he had credited it with a Berkhampstead section that cannot belong to it. The only question which really remains to be considered is whether the Ditch belongs to the Belgic Iron Age, since the Belgae are known to have dug cross-country dykes, or to the pre-Belgic Iron Age, since I have recently assigned this date to a number of cross-ridge dykes not far away in the eastern Chilterns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 37 , Issue 145 , March 1963 , pp. 46 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1963

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References

1 Antiquaries Journal (1961), XLI, 32.

2 In S. S. Frere (Ed.), Problems of the Iron Age in Southern Britain (1961), 31.

3 R. W. Bagshawe, Roman Roads in the South-East Midlands (forthcoming).

4 J. F. Dyer, Records of Bucks. (1962), XVII, 49.

5 Antiquaries Journal (1961), XLI, 32.

6 Journal of the British Archaeological Association (1933), XXXIX, 196.

7 J. F. Head, Early Man in South Buckinghamshire (1955), 76.

8 R. W. Bagshawe and A. J. Hales have given me much help in tracing the additional sections of the Grim’s Ditch. Dr Dorothy Whitelock and P. C. Birtchnell have kindly supplied historical reference material. Mrs M. A. Cotton and Professor Hawkes have made many valuable suggestions which I have endeavoured to incorporate in this paper.