Hotels very near Offa’s Dyke are a little thin on the ground, but Pen-y-Dyffryn Hotel is only one mile from Offa’s Dyke Footpath. We are quietly set in the Shropshire hills near Oswestry. So we are in a great location to enjoy the superb walking in Shropshire and in North Wales.
This long distance footpath offers fantastic day walks. A circular walk near the hotel can be found here. Our local section of Offa’s Dyke incorporates some of the most stunning views of into Wales, including Chirk Castle, the Shropshire plains and towards the Long Mynd.
The hotel offers comfortable accommodation and great food to tired walkers. Pets are welcome (free of charge) and packed lunches are also available.
History of Offa’s Dyke
Built at the command of the eighth-century king of Mercia, Offa’s Dyke is today Britain’s longest ancient monument, following the border between England and Wales. Yet despite more than a century of study, experts still do not fully understand how or when the Dyke was built, and in recent years views have diverged even about such basic questions as its purpose.
Another remarkable thing about Offa’s Dyke is the way in which so much of it has survived: a long-distance trail, the Offa’s Dyke Path, follows much of its course, especially in the historic counties of Gloucestershire, Radnorshire, Shropshire and Montgomeryshire.
It is, however, the context of Offa’s Dyke’s building that provides most relevance to life today, because there are some remarkable similarities between events in the world of late eighth-century England and today’s Europe: warfare at the peripheries of the continent, mass-migration and, above all, Britain’s relationship with Europe were matters of considerable concern as the expansionary Kingdom of Mercia was trying to dominate all the other kingdoms and peoples of England (and especially the remaining powers of Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent and Wessex) during the reigns of Offa (757–796) and Coenwulf (796–821).
