page_title: Offa's Dyke
section_title: Candidate World Heritage Site
hierarchical_section_title: Offa's Dyke / Current / Candidate World Heritage Site
caption_attribution_description: English: Offas Dyke Centre, Knighton
context_page_description: Offa's Dyke is a large linear earthwork that roughly follows the current border between England and Wales. The structure is named after Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from AD 757 until 796, who is traditionally believed to have ordered its construction. Although its precise original purpose is debated, it delineated the border between Anglian Mercia and the Welsh kingdom of Powys.
  The earthwork, which was up to 65 feet wide and 8 feet high, traversed low ground, hills and rivers. Today it is protected as a scheduled monument. Some of its route is followed by the Offa's Dyke Path; a 176-mile long-distance footpath that runs between Liverpool Bay in the north and the Severn Estuary in the south.
  Although the Dyke has conventionally been dated to the Early Middle Ages of Anglo-Saxon England, research in recent decades – using techniques such as radioactive carbon dating – has challenged the conventional historiography and theories about the earthwork, and show that it was started in the early fifth century, during the sub-Roman period.
context_section_description: In 2010, the Dyke was proposed by the Offa's Dyke Association and local authorities for World Heritage Site status.  Part of the proposal stated:
  Offa’s Dyke is a victim of its very scale, nature, meaning and historical success. It is located in two countries, six local authority areas, multiple ownerships and multiple land-use contexts. The main professional stakeholders – such as the English and Welsh path and heritage management agencies – are organisationally and functionally separate. The ancient monument is now often seen as secondary to the modern path, and heritage advice about individual dyke sections is not generally coordinated via any connected overview of the values of the whole monument. Moreover, despite the lasting legacy of Offa's Dyke for English and Welsh communities alike, there is limited public awareness of the monument and its remarkable link to modern ideas of national identity.
  The proposal was rejected in 2011.
caption: Offa's Dyke Centre at Knighton, Powys
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