Maesbury, Shropshire

The Anglo-Saxons and Wat's Dyke

Did Maesbury exist before Wat's Dyke? We'll probably never know for sure but the most likely answer is 'not much'. The River Morda would have meandered across the flat land, being prone to flooding from the frequent rains on the Welsh mountains - and the area was equally prone to attacks from Welsh tribes when the rain stopped. Not an ideal place for a settlement.

The map on the right shows Wat's Dyke in yellow, with the contours of the land. The modern roads and the canal are added added for clarity. The area below/right of the canal was mostly marshland.

When Wat's Dyke was built the Morda was artificially straightened, described below as 'the earliest post-Roman hydraulic engineering in Britain'. The substantial mound, an average 5 metres wide and 2.5 metres high on the English side, not only kept out the Welsh - it was also a perfect flood barrier. And the top of the Dyke would have been an excellent trackway for communicating with areas on higher ground. It seems that these advantages soon made Meresberie (Maesbury) the major settlement of the region. (The traffic along the Dyke would have gradually worn it down to the level of the tarmac Ball Lane today, and the fast flowing stream has probably continued to deepen the cutting over the last 1500 years).

F. A. Mason*, quoting his source as Shropshire Records Research Service, says that when Penda killed Oswald at the battle of Maserfield (elsewhere called Maserfeld, Maserfelth or Masserfelth), in the year 642, it was described a being 'in the vicinity of Maesbury' (others claim it was near Wigan...). If there is any truth in this, and if the above analysis is correct, then it would add to the argument for Wat's Dyke being older then previously thought.

Height above sea level
	- above 100 metres
	- 90 - 100 metres
	- 80 - 90 metres
	- 70 - 80 metres
	- 60 -70 metres

Margaret Worthington* researched the Domesday Book, for all the Anglo-Saxon 'Hundreds' on either side of the whole length of Wat's Dyke. She showed that it had clearly been a boundary between England and Wales, and that as late as 1086 the two different taxation systems still existed and were well recorded.

F. A. Mason states that Wat's Dyke was built in 765. More recent evidence puts it about 300 years earlier, but this is disputed. There appears to be no evidence for such a precise date. According to a page on the Wrexham Borough Council website it "extends from Basingwerk Abbey, near Holywell, Flintshire to Maesbury, Shropshire."

However, there is some disagreement about the southern end. Keith J. Matthews, writing on the webpage Wat’s Dyke: a North Welsh linear boundary says: "Wat’s Dyke runs, more-or-less continuously, between Basingwerk (Flints.) and south of Maesbrook (Salop.), a distance of some 65 km." He then clarifies his use of 'Maesbrook' instead of 'Maesbury':

"...it extends at least 4 km farther south than ... believed. ... the Dyke turns more towards the south south-east, running east of Oswestry via Mile Oak and Ball Mill to Maesbury, where the earthwork ends, although Sir Cyril Fox believed that its termination lay a little farther north, at Pentre-coed. However, his survey provides evidence that the River Morda had been artificially straightened at this point, and the Dyke can now be shown to stretch another 4 km south of Maesbury. This is the earliest post-Roman hydraulic engineering in Britain. Traces of earthwork south of this suggest that the Dyke faded into the boggy ground where the Rivers Morda, Vyrnwy and Severn meet."

The map on the right date from around 1940, and clearly shows Wat's Dyke above Pentre Coed and where the straightened Morda runs alongside Ball Lane.

More on Wat's Dyke:

Margaret Worthington* carried out further field work at the southern end of the Dyke, and found some evidence of earthworks south of Maesbury, though very little remains. Her findings suggest that the Dyke continued through what is now Newbridge (down Watery Lane or Coed y Rae lane), to the point where the Montgomery Canal was later cut through (at the lift bridge), destroying the Dyke in the process. Below the canal was mostly marshland, so only limted earthworks may have been needed to defend the area down to the Severn-Vyrnwy confluence at Melverley.

*Sources:

'Wat's Dyke: an archaeological and historical enigma' by Margaret Worthington B Ed, M Phil, AIFA, which she adapted from her M Phil dissertation on Wat's Dyke, and was published in the journal of the Institute of Field Archeaology in 1997.

A Little Bit of Shropshire: The Village of Maesbury, 1800-1930 by F. A. Mason, published by Gee & Son, Denbigh, November 2000, ISBN 07074 0350 2.

Two books by John Pryce-Jones make brief mention of Maesbury:
Oswestry through the Ages - an introduction Llanforda Press, 1991, ISBN 0 9517162 0 4
Oswestry - A Local History Llanforda Press 1994, ISBN 0 9517162 2 0

There are also many websites which mention Maesbury in historical terms, mostly in the pre-Oswestry times and/or in connection with Wat's Dyke or the Montgomery Canal. The comments above are based on all these.