A Walk Along Offa's Dyke

Once a king called Offa built a dyke. It crossed the marches into Wales from sea to sea. No one knows what it was for; was it to keep the people of Powys out or to keep his own people of Mercia in? A ridge of mud was bordered on the Welsh side by a ditch and today some of it is still visible - 80 miles of land that is oddly ridged - but most of it is worn away by plough and the trampling of hooves and feet. There is a path that follows it however, and some of it goes through land classified as an area of outstanding natural beauty, and luckily for us it is just a short drive away from our house.

Hodmandod Senior realised that he hadn't had a day off work this year (apart from public holidays and compassionate leave) so after a search on the net we decided to pay Offa's dyke a visit.

We started south of Ruthin in a village called Graig Fechan, a lane

leading onto path
where crows coughed at us from trees and many wildflowers lined the path,




and on one bank on closer inspection was a lime kiln, so old that trees had grown through the tightly assembled stones of the furnace.


After the woods came fields, and then after the fields, farms and odd walls until we suddenly emerged into a hamlet of cottages with huge pink roses flopping their already-blown heads over the gate.


Ducking behind a farm again we came across a small lake almost hidden in trees and startled sheep who ran away, the bleats indignant and their dung dried to jangling pellets on the wool of their backsides.


An old drover's road led upwards.


lined in part by bluebells, already past their best and wilting in the heat.


the meadows,

giving way to heathery fields with the remains of Neolithic burial mounds



until we reached the top and could admire the Vale of Clwyd stretching before us.



And felt very glad to be alive.