The Caer Alyn Project is situated on the edge of the village of Llay, 3.8km north of Wrexham. The core area of the project is a plateau of land surrounded on three sides by the River Alyn. This area includes an Iron Age inland promontory fort known as Caer Alyn (or Bryn Alyn Camp), which lies at the southern tip of the plateau, within a hairpin bend in the River Alyn
Sections of Wat’s Dyke have been located both to the north and south of the plateau and the most direct course between these points would be along the western edge of the Caer Alyn plateau and the fort.
There is possible evidence for the dyke at the southern end of the fort, where a depression leading up from the valley appears to be an entrance point into the fort. On the western side of this depression is a small bank and on the western side of that, facing into Wales, is what appears to be a shallow ditch.
This bank and ditch would seem to serve no defensive purpose, as immediately beyond them there is a very steep drop down into the Alyn valley. They might, though, be a section of Wat’s Dyke. However, this bank and ditch are within the fort’s scheduled area, so currently we cannot investigate them.
However, the western edge of the Caer Alyn plateau to the north of the fort is unscheduled and no archaeological investigation has ever been undertaken on any part of it. We had intended to excavate a section of this area in August 2020 but due to the Covid-19 outbreak we may need to postpone this investigation.
In 2006 a geophysical survey was carried out in the area just north of the fort. Fourteen 20m grids were surveyed (Fig 4). The plot is complicated and includes a football pitch in the top left corner. The banks and ditches of the fort (presumed to be Iron Age) are situated just outside the survey area, to the south. The most outstanding anomalies in the survey are the semi-circular ditches running from east to west in the lower section of the plot. The biggest and deepest ditch is the northern one. This ditch seems to cross a linear feature (marked by the yellow line) on the western edge of the plateau: this is the assumed path of Wat’s Dyke. The plan is to put a trench in the area where both features cross, as indicated by the orange circle, with the aim being to ascertain if the linear feature is associated with the large cross ditch and/or with Wat’s Dyke. If this linear feature is associated with the dyke, it may also be possible to obtain dating evidence from it. The two cross ditches may indicate that the fort’s northern defences were reinforced at some point, possibly during the construction of the dyke or after its construction if the fort was being used as a defensible control point on the dyke.
Read More at
https://offaswatsdyke.wordpress.com/2020/04/04/special-offa-9-caer-alyn-wats-going-on-alan-brown/
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