Another in the occasional series on historical sites on the “London Loop” (London Outer Orbital Path) walk …
Grim’s Dyke is an intermittently-preserved bank-and-ditch earthwork that runs for a distance of some miles through North-West London, from Pinner Green, or possibly Ruislip, in the south-west, to Harrow Weald Common, or possibly Stanmore, in the north-east. Recent archaeological evidence indicates that it probably dates to the Iron Age, rather than to the Dark Ages, as had long been thought. Apparently associated Iron Age pottery was unearthed at an excavation in Montesole Park in Pinner Green in 1957, and a first-century – or earlier – hearth in the grounds of the Grim’s Dyke Hotel on Harrow Weald Common in 1979. Note in this context that there are further Iron Age sites in Stanmore, believed to have then been home to a tribe of Ancient Britons known as the Catuvellauni.
