The ODA is now registered with the Fund Raising Regulator. We have signed up to the standards required of charities by the Code of Fundraising Practice. To see the Code visit fundraisingregulator.org.uk
The ODA’s 2026 Passport season gets underway this year with the stamping boxes on site ready for an Easter weekend start. Proceeds from sales of the Passport support our own Offa’s Dyke Conservation Fund. In 2025 the ODA funded £1,000 for scrub removal and vegetation management to the Dyke at Sedbury in Gloucestershire.
Passport price £6 from our online shop https://offasdyke.org.uk/shop/page/2/
Join us in 2024 to share, enjoy, understand and discover more about Offa’s Dyke. Our newly curated interpretive displays at the Offa’s Dyke Centre will inspire you.
Prof Keith Ray, curator of our Offa’s Dyke interpretive exhibition, talks to English Heritage’s Charles Rowe about King Offa, the Saxon kingdom of Mercia and the archaeological earthwork Offa’s Dyke. Walking along a section of the eponymous Offa’s Dyke Path in Gloucestershire, where the Trail is coincident with the monument, Keith explains some of the challenges associated with managing visitors in a sensitive archaeological landscape. He also discusses the important role played by the Offa’s Dyke Association in influencing long distance walkers towards walking the Trail during drier months of the year when there is less risk of erosion and damage to the Dyke. Listen to the podcast: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/EHE9742327131?selected=EHE6080520973
The photo was taken in March 2023 during Keith’s Offa’s Dyke, Encounters and Explanations project, an epic 23 day, 209 mile walk along the entire length of Offa’s Dyke. Also visit @digitalself4 on X (formerly Twitter) to for his daily VLOGs broadcast along the journey.
The ODA is proud to be associated with Professor Ray’s journey along the full course of Offa’s Dyke. Keith’s research for his forthcoming book, Offa’s Dyke: Encounters and Explanations, will enable locals and visitors alike to understand the monument in its entirety, not just the fifty percent coincident with the National Trail. Tune in to Keith’s progress with his video blogs (offaprof) on Twitter @digitalself4
Keith’s press release
‘Offa’s Dyke, the mighty earthwork built in the eighth century by the most famous of the Kings of Anglo-Saxon Mercia, ran 150 miles from Sedbury Cliffs, on the Severn Estuary near Chepstow, to Gronant Beach, near Prestatyn in North Wales. The Dyke helped create a frontier zone between Mercia in the east and the Welsh kingdoms to the west. Although the Dyke does not follow the line of the modern political boundary, it can be seen as marking a first version of the border between England and Wales. Offa’s legacy remains with us today, over 1200 years later.
Between 15 March and 6 April Professor Keith Ray of Cardiff University will walk the entire route of the Dyke, as closely as possible, from south to north. His route will take in not only the sections which survive as huge landscape features through the Welsh Marches and Gloucestershire, but also lengths lost, hidden or damaged over time, now being identified by current research.
Keith will take not only the national trail, the Offa’s Dyke Path, which follows the Dyke for roughly 50% of its length, but also a series of unfamiliar routes to trace the rest. Although the parts of the Dyke that lie away from the Offa’s Dyke Path are less well-known, they are just as crucial to understanding Offa’s border zone and how it might have worked.
Keith’s walk is part of a project to strengthen understanding of the Dyke in its entirety. He has two objectives:
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To follow, as closely as rights of way and developing knowledge permit, the whole course of the Dyke as built – a first for a single walk.
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To complete field studies for a new book, Offa’s Dyke: Encounters and Explanations. This will be the first field and walking guide to help people explore the whole Dyke, including the long sections where the route differs from the line of the Offa’s Dyke Path.
At the same time, the walk is intended to make people aware of the vital, ongoing efforts of the Offa’s Dyke Association, in studying the Dyke, monitoring its condition, and promoting its conservation.
KEITH RAY
Professor Keith Ray was awarded an MBE for his services to archaeology in Herefordshire. He has researched and written about Offa’s Dyke and the Early Medieval frontier for 20 years. Today, Keith is Honorary Professor of Archaeology in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University.
For further information, please contact:
Terry Morgan (terrymorgan.harefields@gmail.com Tel. 07876 446666)