c. 1880-c. 1925 - The monument is recorded as a bank or terrace, on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd OS County Series 25" maps. For much of this stretch the monument had a large wall running along its crest and formed the boundary between fields. {Source Works 5134, 5136, 5138.}

1893-4 - Maclean made a survey of the course of the Dyke for an article in the transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society {Source Work 1604}.

1931 - Fox reported that the the southern part of the monument here was a ploughed down dyke which ran diagonally across fields (SMR 16400, 16401). For much of its length in this section the bank formed field boundaries and was either revetted with stone or had dry stone walling on it. The east ditch was traceable in several places. {Source Work 102.}

1970 - The Royal Commission Lin 33 Survey reported that the monument for much of this section acted as a hedge bank and averaged 1 metre high. {Source Work 2853.}

1975 - Section between SO53830289 and SO53850280 is visible as an earthwork on Fairey Surveys aerial photographs. The remainder coincides with a modern hedge line. {Pers. comm. S. Brown, Source Work 615.}

1995 - The Offa's Dyke Management Survey made detailed records of this section of the monument which can be found under SMR 16399, 16400, 16402, 16403, 16404, 16405, 16406, 16407, 16408, 16409, 16411, 16412, 16403, 16414 and 16417. For much of this section a large stone wall ran along the crest of the monument which was either a bank or terrace here. In places Offan quarries were visible to the east of the bank. {Source Works 2206 , 6650.}

Not visible on RAF aerial photographs taken in 1946. {Source Work 863, pers. comm. S. Brown.}

2000 - Scheduling review

"Offa’s Dyke: 514m long section of bank with quarries to the east on St. Briavels Common, 40m west of The Fields NGR: SO 53790303... ...Reason for Amendment to Scheduled Area: The monument has been reviewed and it is now considered that the scheduling should be amended to cover the full extent of the monument, including the quarry pits to the east of the bank, which will contain archaeological information and environmental evidence integral to a full understanding of the monument." Source Work 17502.}

2000 - MPP Alternative Action Report: Line of Offa’s Dyke, St. Briavels NGR: SO 53820344

“Fox believed that this section of the Dyke had been destroyed. In 1995 an overgrown rubble spread was noted in this area, but its status was unclear and it was thought unlikely to indicate the line of the monument. No trace of the Dyke was found anywhere else in the area, although it is thought that the trackway of the Offa’s Dyke long distance foot path may run along the original line of the monument. Geophysical survey and trial excavation in these areas may indicate the original

course of the monument through the recognition of quarry pits to the east or the ditch to the west.” {Source Work 17524.}

2000 - MPP Alternative Action ReportMPP Alternative Action Report: Line of Offa’s Dyke, St. Briavels NGR: SO 53920267

"Fox believed that this section of the Dyke had been destroyed. In 1995 an overgrown rubble spread 10m wide and 1m high was noted in the southern end of this gap, but this is thought to be derived from the demolition of a building shown at this spot on the first series Ordnance Survey map (c.1880). No trace of the Dyke was found anywhere else in the area.

Geophysical survey and trial excavation in these areas may indicate the original course of the monument through the recognition of infilled quarry pits to the east or the ditch to the west.” {Source Work 17525.}

2003 - This area was mapped at 1:10,000 scale as part of the English Heritage: Gloucestershire NMP project.

A section of Offa's Dyke situated on St Briavels Common, immediately west of a house called The Fields, is visible as an interrupted earthwork on 1970 aerial photographs. This section is 514 metres in length, the bank is between 6 metres and 8 metres wide and the quarry ditches cover an area up to 5 metres wide. Part of the northern section has been destroyed due to work relating to Beech Cottage. {Source Works 4249, 7549, 7530.}

2011 - This site is included in a thesis on Medieval Dykes when looking at Offa's Dyke in the Wye Valley:-

There are two sections main sections of bank commonly called Offa’s Dyke on the east bank of the River Wye in Gloucestershire, a shorter stretch centred on English Bicknor, a longer section downstream centred on St Briavel’s Common extending north from Newland parish to Tidenham. This study refers to these two parts as the English Bicknor earthwork and the southern earthwork. Most parts are quite close to the east bank of the river, usually on top of the cliffs on the eastern side though across St Briavel’s Common the earthwork runs across flatter land up to a kilometre from the river. Note that another earthwork in Gloucestershire also in Tidenham parish commonly called Offa’s Dyke at the mouth of the River Wye, Beachley Bank, has a separate entry. With no conclusive dating evidence the earthworks along the Wye valley in Gloucestershire are possible early medieval dykes (though the builders of the earthwork might have reused or refurbished the Iron Age ramparts at Symonds Yat and Lancaut no dimension are given as this is speculative).

Name:- Hill implied it was the publication of Fox’s work that lead to the attachment of Offa’s name to these earthworks (Hill and Worthington 2003 146-48). However, earthworks along the River Wye are clearly marked as Offa’s Dyke on nineteenth century Ordnance Survey maps, called Offa’s Dyke by Omerod in 1842 and a 1321 document names an earthwork near St Briavel’s as Offedich (Ormerod 1842 14-15; Herbert 1996 249).

Evidence:- Along the east bank of the River Wye there are undoubtedly earthworks, but it is very difficult to distinguish it from evidence of quarrying, lynchets, hollow ways, field boundaries and Iron Age features. Fox, Hill, the Ordnance Survey, the NMR and the Gloucestershire SMR all dismiss or include sections the others do not. It was usually assumed gaps in the earthwork existed as the builders utilised cliffs as well as older earthworks to save on labour (Stanford 1980 197). Though Bapty notes recent lidar data fills many of the gaps along the River Wye, but just because a feature links two earthworks it is not proof they are all contemporary and not, say, a field boundary or track (Bapty 2007 24). Though both Malim and Hill accept there is an earthwork running along the east bank of the River Wye, neither think it part of Offa’s Dyke noting how it is much smaller (Hill 2000 198-200; Hill and Worthington 2003 45 and 143-47; Malim 2007 25). Not only are the earthworks by the Wye often set back from the crests of slopes it would be odd if the Mercians built a dyke in Gloucestershire where steep cliffs line the banks of the river when they did not bother in Herefordshire where the valley is much easier to cross (Hill and Worthington 2003 147). For Fox, Offa set back the earthwork from the Wye because, as an agreed frontier, he allowed Welsh boatmen access to the river and the earthwork marked the edge between cultivated Mercian land to the east and forest and moor to the west (Fox 1955 211-23).

There have been a few excavations and watching briefs (usually in advance of pipeline laying), but not only have these produced no dating evidence, often the trenches reveal no sign of the earthwork (Hill and Worthington 2003 144 and 184). This is possibly due to the fact that being a scheduled monument the digs were at pre-existing gaps in the earthwork where past activity has already destroyed the dyke. In 1965 a group from Gloucester Museum cut a section through the earthwork at Lippett’s Grove in Tidenham parish (SO540001) revealing a bank, an apparently very shallow ditch and a counterscarp bank. In 1978-79 Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service carried out a dig at Birchfield Cottage in St Briavel’s parish (SO535025), but found no evidence of a dyke. According to Hill they dug near the Devil’s Pulpit (at ST543995) in 1983, but the only dig in the area recorded in the SMR was a watching brief carried out two years later just to the north (at SO542000) on a narrow trench cut by the South Wales Electricity Board through an existing gap in the monument.1 The latter dig found the base of the bank and the base of the infilled ditch. In 1993 a dig they carried out at Beeches Bungalow in St Briavel’s Common (SO538031) revealed that construction of the house platform had removed all traces of the dyke. As well as these excavations sections of the earthwork have been surveyed by Gloucestershire County Environment Department (for example in 1995 they started on the area north of Lydbrook, SO602183 to SO596170) and more recently this work has involved the use of lidar data (Nenk, Margeson et al. 1996 255; Bapty 2003; Bapty 2007 24).

Location:- The English Bicknor earthwork lies in the parishes of Lydrook and English Bicknor and if we connect the definite portions marked in Fox’s plans (SO592173 southwest to SO584168) this section was up to 1.2 kilometres long, though Hill gives a figure of 800 metres as there are gaps in the earthwork (Fox 1955 184-86; Hill and Worthington 2003 45). This section might be even longer as the SMR/NMR record it about 100 metres further south (SO583165) and there is a feature that follows the same alignment as the dyke further north which might be a hollow way, though Fox and the NMR is dubious of this northern extension. The negative evidence of various surveys recorded in the SMR make Noble’s suggestion the dyke extended even further north into the parish of Ruarden very unlikely (Noble and Gelling 1983 12 and 16).

The southern earthwork starts just south of Redbrook (SO539091) and runs southward through the parish of St Briavel’s through the parish of Hewelsfield and Brookwier finishing in Chapelhouse Wood near Tutshill in the parish of Tidenham (to ST536951) 14 kilometres away as crow flies, 16 kilometres on the ground (Fox 1955 186-96; Hill and Worthington 2003 45). A lynchet (ST533945, Gloucestershire SMR reference 21591) may mark a small continuation about 400 metres further south of Chapelhouse Wood (Fox 1955 195-96; Noble and Gelling 1983 2-3)There is a gap about two kilometres long in the southern section between Dennel Hill and Woodcroft (ST549967 to ST538953). On loops in the east bank of the River Wye there are two multivallate promontory forts and though archaeologists have not excavated them, the NMR and SMR assumes they are Iron Age. The first at Symonds Yat (SO564156, NMR SO 51 NE 3, Monument 109563) lies in the gap between the English Bicknor and southern section of Offa’s Dyke (Fox 1955 186). The second at Lancaut (the ramparts run from ST542968 to ST541965, NMR reference ST 59 NW 3, Monument 198723) lies in the middle of the gap in the southern section where Fox failed to find any signs of anything that might be Offa’s Dyke (Fox 1955 194-95). If excavated there Iron Age ramparts might show evidence the builders of Offa’s Dyke in Gloucestershire reused or refurbished them.

None of the earthworks in this section is contiguous with parish boundaries, possibly because utilising the nearby River Wye was far more obvious and convenient.

Structure :- As it is not certain which sections of the earthworks along the Wye in Gloucestershire are original unaltered by later agricultural activity or quarrying, measurements are difficult to make. In some parts Fox mentions a wide berm, in others he says there is no berm (Fox 1955 187-88). In most sections there is a single bank and usually a single ditch, but the ditch varies from the east to the west side; this eastern ditch being one of the reasons Hill dismisses this earthwork as the work of Offa (Fox 1955 220; Hill and Worthington 2003 146). An eastern ditch is on the ‘wrong’ side for a Mercian border with the Welsh and Fox constantly dismisses apparent eastern ditches as quarries for the bank (Fox 1955 184, 187-88 and 191).

The English Bicknor earthwork and the southern section both vary in scale and structure. The northern part of the English Bicknor earthwork in Lydbrook has no ditch, but parts of the front of the bank have a possible stone revetment. Further south in English Bicknor there is a ditch on the west side separated from the bank by a berm. This ditch is up to 5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep (though in parts only 0.4 metres deep and much narrower) and there is often a counterscarp bank. The bank in this sector varies from 7 to 10 metres wide to 11 to 15 metres wide. The height of the bank is difficult to measure where it is on sloping ground (as this exaggerates the elevation on the western side), but seems to be around 1.5 metres high, though Fox said where ‘recent’ roadway cut through dyke in English Bicknor the bank was found to be 2.1 metres high (Fox 1955 184).

The southern earthwork, being longer, varies even more. In the parish of Newland there is a bank up to 10 to 13.5 metres wide and up to a metre high with intermittent ditches on the west side up to a metre deep and 5 metres wide sometimes with a counterscarp bank up to 0.8 metres wide and 4 to 8 metres wide. In places in Newland there are quarry ditches 0.4 to 1 metre deep and 3 to 6 metres wide on the east side, elsewhere the earthwork is merely terrace 4 metres wide and a metre high, and in others it is a scarp of the slope up to 3.5 metres high. On St Briavels Common some sections have a bank up to 1.2 metres high and 6 metres to 11 metres wide with quarry ditches to the east up generally 0.5 metres deep (though in some places up to 1.5 metres deep) and 3 to 5 metres wide (again in places up to 7 metres wide). In some part of St Briaviels’s Common, for example south of Sittingreen, there is a ditch to the west of the bank, this is around 0.4 metres deep and 7 metres wide, separated from the bank by a berm and in places there is a counterscarp bank around 0.5 metres high and 6 metres wide. In Hewelsfield and Brookwier parish near Brook House east of Brookwier there is a bank up to 0.5 metres high and up to 8 metres wide with quarry ditches on the eastern side up to 0.4 metres deep and 2 to 3 metres wide. The Lippett’s Grove the bank stands to a maximum height of 5.1 metres on its northwest face and 1.4 metres on its southeast faces (this variation is due to the steep slope) and is about 12 metres wide at the base. Where the slope is steep there is a berm about 2 metres wide, where the slope is shallow there is a ditch on the west side up to 0.7 metres deep and 3 metres wide and a counterscarp bank up to 0.7 metres high. A series of quarry pits lie to east of the bank in Lippett’s Grove up to 0.7 metres deep and between 3 and 7 metres wide. The southernmost section in Chapelhouse Wood in Tidenham the Dyke is visible as a ditch up to 0.4 metres deep and one metre wide with a bank on the east side bank around a metre high and 10 to 12 metres wide. To the west of the ditch is a counterscarp bank up to 0.4 metres high and 4 metres wide and shallow quarry pits to the east of the bank. An approximate median size for the features in the southern section (working from west to east across the monument) is a counterscarp bank 0.6 metres high and 5 metres wide, a ditch 0.6 metres deep and 4 metres wide, a bank a metre high and 10 metres wide and a quarry ditch 0.7 metres deep and 4 metres wide. {Source Work 10811.}

2017 - A management conservation survey was undertaken by Offa's Dyke Association, Historic England and Cadw during 2017. A managment plan was produced. Each land parcel management recommendation has been added to the field parcels allocated during the 1995 management survey by Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service.

Project ID: OD237

Name: Between 1020526 and 1020592, Meg's Folly to Oakwood

Length (metres): 335

County: Gloucestershire

NGR: SO 5380 0361 to SO 5383 0328

Description: Fox describes this section as:

‘Near Megs Folly the roadway is in the ditch and the W hedge on the bank. For 120 yards it cannot be seen, but in field 29 the bank is present, the road being in the ditch. Almost completely ploughed out in field 30 …’

In 2017, the alignment of Offa’s Dyke is followed by a restricted byway, a narrow, stone-surfaced pathway to the N, becoming a broad, stone-surfaced track to the S, where it serves as the accessway to Oak Cottage and fields. Bounded by hedgerows, mostly managed to the S, less so to the N.

Offa’s Dyke Path follows this alignment.

Action: None

Recommended for Scheduling? No

Condition code: AIF3 AIT5 DG3 VH3

Condition trend: Unfavourable No Change

Project ID OD238

Scheduled Yes

Scheduled Monument Number 1020592

Guardianship No

On Heritage at Risk Register? No

Name Offa's Dyke: section on St Briavels Common, immediately west of The Fields

County Gloucestershire (Forest of Dean)

National Grid Reference SO 53827 02896

No of Segments in Section 1

Survey Date(s) Tuesday, August 22, 2017 & Thursday, 24 August, 2018

Form Slighter

Condition Trend Unfavourable No Change

Vulnerability Low

Risk Low

Condition Code AIF3 DG3 VB3 VH4 VR3 VT3

Description Monument section, of slighter form, mostly beneath pasture with overgrown hedgerow becoming scrubby; and beneath Beech Cottage and its garden curtilage; and the garden curtilage and grass tennis court of The Fields. Bracken and rank vegetation (nettle, bramble). Extensive 'dumping' of redundant agricultural machinery, etc., on land of Dene Hurst Farm north of Beech Cottage. Two utility poles.

Offa's Dyke Path crosses the line of the Dyke immediately south of Beech Cottage. Wear along line and at pinch point (kissing gate).

Action Clear redundant machinery, etc., from Scheduled area

Restore hedgerow by laying/ coppicing, clearing woody plants not forming the hedgeline, stumps to remain in situand be chemically treated to control regrowth

Control bracken and rank vegetation (bramble, nettle) by repeated cutting or chemical treatment, as appropriate

Install sacrificial surface along line and at pinch point (kissing gate) of Offa's Dyke Path through Dyke section

Biodiversity N/A

Landscape Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

HLW (Gt) 3 The Lower Wye Valley, Register of Outstanding Historic Landscapes in Wales {Source Work 17359.}