The Lower Short Ditch

 archaeological site, dike, scheduled ancient monument

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The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of a linear boundary or dyke, known as the Lower Short Ditch. It has been linked with the Upper Short Ditch which lies 3.5km to the west of this boundary, in Wales, and seems to have been designed to bar access into territory to the east via an important early trackway known as the Kerry Ridgeway. The Lower Short Ditch straddles the English/Welsh border. This monument includes only the English section. The section within Wales is protected separately. Both dykes have also been linked to Offa's Dyke, the 8th century Anglo-Saxon defensive earthwork, which is crossed by the Ridgeway at a point 4.5km to the east of the Lower Short Ditch. If the two Short Ditches were designed to prevent British (Welsh) incursions into the territory of the Anglo-Saxons, then the earthwork defenses may pre-date the construction of Offa's Dyke.

The Ditch includes an earthwork bank, on average 1.4m high and 12m wide at the base, with a ditch immediately to the west, 5m wide and about 1.2m deep. On the east side is a smaller ditch, up to 3m wide and 0.3m deep. It runs for 710m from north to south, linking two steep sided natural declivities which plunge down off the crest of the Kerry Ridge. At either end there is a clear terminal to the bank, with the western ditch continuing down the steep slopes for several metres. This would have effectively sealed off any traffic from west to east at this point. The current boundary between England and Wales runs along the course of the Kerry Ridgeway and has cut the Ditch at the north end, leaving 40m of the defensive earthwork in Wales.

Within the recent past a metalled roadway has been constructed along the top of the bank for the northern two thirds of the monument, linking the track which cuts the Ditch at the south eastern corner of Square Plantation to the Kerry Ridgeway.
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