Offa's Dyke:Section N & S of the Circle on Holywell Racecourse, and Circle and Round Barrow

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.