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The dyke as it survives today does not stretch the full length of the border between the two countries and only in a few places does it coincide exactly with the modern national boundary. Much of the dyke has been destroyed or lost, but from what remains within the landscape it appears to have been roughly 70 miles in length, though Bishop Asser, in his Life of King Alfred, written some 100 years after Offa’s death, describes it as stretching north–south, ‘from sea to sea’, that is, it is assumed, from somewhere on the north-facing coast near Prestatyn, overlooking the Irish Sea, down to the cliffs at Sedbury on the Severn Estuary, incorporating ditches and banks from earlier periods, some possibly Roman, implying the idea of an imposed border may not have been quite such an original concept as assumed. The kings of Powys in particular had over the centuries shown considerable interest in invading their eastern neighbour with its rich and fertile landscape – they attacked Hereford no less than four times during Offa’s reign alone, the last major attack in his reign, as far as we know, in the year 760.

In pencil, Simon had noted here, also 778?? 784?? 796? Bloody hell!

Bea smiled and read on:

Offa had far more ambitious things to do than protect this leaky western edge of his kingdom. His main interests faced north, south and east. He had the kingdoms of East Anglia, and Wessex, Kent and even Northumbria in his sights; he would be pleased to ensure peace on his western borders with the peoples the Anglo-Saxons called the waelisc, meaning foreigner, a word that eventually segued into the word ‘Welsh’. The protection was to be achieved by the simple process of digging a ditch, which would, as part of the construction process, automatically raise a defensive bank immediately beyond it. Forts and watchtowers have not survived, if they ever existed. Even the possible presence of a palisade of some kind on top of the bank is in contention. There is much still to be discovered about this famous landmark.