Grim's Ditch
The Anglo-Saxon word dīc was pronounced "deek" in northern England and "deetch" (dīċ) in the south.
The method of building this type of earthwork involved digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it.
This practice has resulted in the name dīc being given to either the trench or the bank, and this evolved into two words, ditch and dyke in modern British English.
Many ancient earthworks of this name exist across England and Wales, pre-dating the Anglo Saxon settlement of Britain.
[j] The name of Wōden is thought by some historians to be evident in Wansdyke, an ancient earthwork of uncertain origin which runs from Wiltshire to Somerset.
The Devil's Dyke, occasionally met with as the name of ditches, may be compared.Frank Stenton notes that there is no direct evidence that Wōden was known in England as Grim, but (citing supporting claims by Professor Eilert Ekwall) states that it was very probable.
He mentions three sites named Grimes Wrosen: one outside Colchester in Essex; another in Warwickshire on the route of the Roman road Watling Street; and Credenhill in Herefordshire.
[6] Among Woden's many roles is that of a god of war, and it may be that the Anglo-Saxons perceived the earthworks as military in function and therefore ascribed them to him.
[8] Earthworks bearing names related to Grim or the Devil proliferate around Britain: Grim's Ditches exist in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and West Yorkshire, and Devil's Dykes exist in Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk (near Weeting) and Hertfordshire.
[9] Beyond Britain, a set of Roman Limes on the borders of Hungary, Romania and Serbia are sometimes known as the Devil's Dykes in Hungarian.
The official scheduling says: "The monument includes the buried and upstanding remains of the middle part of a late Iron Age or Romano-British linear boundary earthwork (Gryme's Dyke) located some 3.5km WSW of Colchester town centre."
There is another earthwork close by in Pear Wood, Brockley Hill that has been suggested as an eastern continuation of the Grim's Dyke.
The Royal Commission's survey of Bokerley Dyke disputed the idea of Grim's Ditch being a single monument, and suggested it was a complex of separate sections.
The Historic Environment Record for Hertfordshire suggests that the section on Berkhamsted Common is of Iron Age or early Roman date for the monument is most likely than the Bronze Age (date suggested for the rest of Grim's Ditch because it is larger here and does not follow the contours of the landscape like the rest of Grim's Ditch.
Part of the western end was excavated during the building of Winterbrook Bridge, and dated as late Iron Age/early Roman.
The ditch has a bank on the north side which suggests that its function was to bar passage into the southernmost part of Oxfordshire.
However, since a neighbouring set of earthworks, Streatly Ditches, faces north, it would be difficult to come to the conclusion that the two create a barrier against movement up the Thames valley.
