Cof Cymru: National Historic Assets of Wales · Wales
Offa's Dyke:Section N & S of the Circle on Holywell Racecourse, and Circle and Round Barrow
Ysceifiog, Flintshire, Wales
A scheduled monument in Ysceifiog, Flintshire, recorded as Linear Earthwork (Early Medieval).
The record
- Designation
- Scheduled monument
- Site type
- Linear Earthwork
- Period
- Early Medieval
- Community
- Ysceifiog
- Unitary authority
- Flintshire
- Country
- Wales
- Coordinates (centre of the scheduled area)
- 53.26795, -3.27392
- SAM number
- FL006
- Cadw record number
- 2183
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesLlyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of WalesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesNational Library of Scotland
5 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1795 map "To Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn Bart ... the map of the six counties of North Wales is most humbly inscribed by his obedient humble servant" (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales).
Historical maps covering this location
- 1795 · To Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn Bart ... the map of the six counties of North Wales is most… (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales)
- 1830 · V.3:11-15:XV. Britisches Reich. A. Kon: England. b. Frstenthum Wales: Shire: 37-40 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1883 · Watershed map England, Wales 3. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1901 · Sheet 9 and 10. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1930 · OS Popular Edition 1919-1947 (National Library of Scotland)
Cadw's description
Summary description and reason for designation
The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.
The monument comprises the remains of a multi-period complex of earthworks, situated within pasture fields to the south and west of Lower Stables. The complex consists of two lengths of dyke (formerly identified as Offa’s Dyke, but more recently identified as the Whitford Dyke), abutting an earlier earthwork consisting of a round barrow c.24m in diameter and 1.1m high, set eccentrically within an oval, hengiform enclosure, c.108m northeast to southwest, by 95m. The oval enclosure is defined by a bank with an external ditch. The barrow, dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC), was excavated in 1925, and revealed an inhumation in a central pit and three secondary cremations, one in-urned.
The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual, and early medieval defensive organisation and settlement. The monument is an important and unusual relic of a multi-period landscape and retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of both intact burial or ritual deposits and environmental and structural evidence, including buried prehistoric land surfaces.
The area to be scheduled comprises the remains described and an area around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.
Nearby in the register
- Llyn Du Round BarrowRound Barrowunder 1 mi
- Plas-newyddDomesticunder 1 mi
- Telephone Call-boxCommunicationsunder 1 mi
- Bwrdd y Rhyfel CampEnclosureunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.