The Great Dykes of the Welsh Borderlands on Early Cartography

Robert Silvester

Abstract


Offa’s and Wat’s Dykes make comparatively few appearances on historic maps pre-dating the Ordnance Survey era, normally because of their lack of relevance to the primary purposes for which the maps were created. This short paper examines the published county maps that do scribe their courses through the Welsh borderlands. A preliminary attempt is presented to identify manuscript maps where the earthworks are featured. Collectively they add little to our existing knowledge of the dykes themselves, but they do contribute to their historiography.

Keywords


Offa’s Dyke; Wat’s Dyke; published map; manuscript map; folklore

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References


Manuscript sources

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Fowler, W. 1663. Long Mountain estate map. National Library of Wales/Estate Maps no.7485

Powis Lordship. 1801. National Library of Wales/Powis Castle Estate M43

Powis Lordship. 1820. National Library of Wales/Powis Castle Estate M269

Probert, J. 1760. Mainstone and Llanfair estate maps. Powis Estate Archives PE11

Probert, J. 1763. Walcot estate sale maps. British Library MSS EUR D513

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23914/odj.v7i0.14334

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