Grim’s Ditch, Streatley

Grim's Ditch in the woods by Aldworth

Grim’s Ditch near Streatley in Berkshire, is a series of Iron Age earthworks, also known as the Streatley Ditches. They are dug on the slopes of the Berkshire Downs.

Streatley stands in the Goring Gap, where the River Thames twists and squeezes through to force a passage between the Berkshire Downs and the Chilterns over on the Oxfordshire bank. The earthworks are found here, in a short section down the steep slope of the Holies down to the riverbank, and with a section further west, on the gentler contours south of Aldworth. Another work also bearing the name 'Grim's Ditch' is found southwest of the latter stretch, near Ashampstead.

• Location map: 51°30’45"N, 1°8’44"W

As with many similar works bearing the word, the word "Ditch" originally meant an earthwork in general; both the bank and the trench. The Old English dic, meaning essentially 'diggings', gives Modern English both 'ditch' (from the southern dialect) and 'dyke' (from the northern).

The Streatley Ditches appear too small to have been a seriously defensive line but may have marked a boundary or they may have been more effective as a defence in their own time. They have a counterpart on the Oxfordshire side of the river; Grim's Ditch, Nuffield, but the two are separated by ten miles and while the Oxfordshire works face south, the Streatley Ditches face north, so they would not have been part of one defensive system.

See also

• Grim's Ditch

References

• National Heritage List 1006982: Grim's Ditch: two sections in Portobello Wood, Holies Shaw and High Holies Wood Gap (Scheduled ancient monument entry)