Grim's Ditch, Nuffield
Grim's Ditch is an ancient earthwork in the south of Oxfordshire stretching in a line five miles long from the Chiltern escarpment at Hayden Farm near Nettlebed to the east bank of the River Thames near Mongwell Park (opposite Wallingford in Berkshire). The main, straight stretch is clear from Mongwell eastward to Nuffield.
Part of the western end was excavated during the building of Winterbrook Bridge, and dated as late Iron Age/early Roman. The ditch has a bank on the north side which suggests that its function was to bar passage into the southernmost part of Oxfordshire.[1]
Context
Grim's Ditch is one of several ancient earthworks in Oxfordshire, including another of the same name in the west of the county, Grim's Ditch, Charlbury, and one of several earthworks in the southern and eastern counties given the name 'Grim's Ditch'.
Archaeological studies have been made of the dyke itself, and of its place in the landscape and relationship (if any) to similar earthworks in the area of the Chilterns and the Thames Valley.[2]
The topsoil of the ditch indicates evidence of earlier ploughing, and the overall composition changes across belts of chalk, valley and plateau gravel and clay with flints.[2]
The dyke faces south, while its neighbouring works across the river in Berkshire, Streatley Ditches, face north, which suggests they are not all one system, and they d not run in a line as if to prevent movement on both sides of the river.[2]
One of the few finds at the South Oxfordshire Ditch is a coin of Allen’s British A, dateable to the beginning of the 1st century BC. [2] This and comparison with similar works such as the Chichester Entrenchments, date the ditch to the Iron Age.
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