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Early medieval defensive linear earthworks in the West Country of England
the earthworks

Wansdyke (from Woden's Dyke) is a series of early medieval defensive linear earthworks in the West Country of England, consisting of a ditch and a running embankment from the ditch spoil, with the ditching facing north. There are two main parts: an eastern dyke which runs between Savernake Forest, West Woods and Morgan's Hill in Wiltshire, and a western dyke which runs from Monkton Combe to the ancient hill fort of Maes Knoll in historic Somerset. Between these two dykes there is a middle section formed by the remains of the London to Bath Roman road. There is also some evidence in charters that it extended west from Maes Knoll to the coast of the Severn Estuary but this is uncertain. It may possibly define a post Roman boundary.

Wansdyke consists of two sections, long with some gaps in between. East Wansdyke is an impressive linear earthwork, consisting of a ditch and bank running approximately east–west, between Savernake Forest and Morgan's Hill. West Wansdyke is also a linear earthwork, running from Monkton Combe south of Bath to Maes Knoll south of Bristol, but less substantial than its eastern counterpart. The middle section, long, is sometimes referred to as 'Mid Wansdyke', but is formed by the remains of the London to Bath Roman road. It used to be thought that these sections were all part of one continuous undertaking, especially during the Middle Ages when the pagan name Wansdyke was applied to all three parts. However, this is not now considered to be certain.

Among the largest defensive earthworks in the United Kingdom, Wansdyke may be compared to both Offa's Dyke (later, and forming a Mercian border with Wales) and Hadrian's Wall (earlier, and forming a border between Britannia and Caledonia). Nennius, an 8th century Welsh monk who had access to older chronicles since lost, describes these defences and their purpose, and links them to the legends of King Arthur.

The earthwork is named after their god Woden (Odin), possibly indicating that the incoming Anglo Saxons had no information about the origins of a structure that was there when they arrived, and which was of no significance to locals at that time. Its name occurs in charters of the 9th and 10th century AD. Its relationship to the expansion of the West Saxons was considered in 1964 by J. N. L. Myres, who maintained that Wansdyke was constructed by some sub Roman authority. Fowler speculates that it was a fortification intended for use against invading Saxons in the 490s, and abandoned when the news of British victory at Mons Badonicus made it redundant. The name 'Woden's Dyke' eventually became Wansdyke.

East Wansdyke in Wiltshire, on the south of the Marlborough Downs, has been less disturbed by later agriculture and building, and is more clearly traceable on the ground than the western part. In places the bank is up to high and the ditch as much as deep. Since at least the tenth century, there have been gaps, "gates", in the work. The ditch is on the north side, so Wansdyke may have been intended by the Romano Britons as a defence against West Saxons encroaching from the upper Thames Valley westward into what is now the West Country. Fowler suggests that its plan is consistent with those of Roman border fortifications such as Hadrian's Wall: not just a military defence but intended to control locals and travellers along the Wessex Ridgeway. He suggests further that the works were never finished, abandoned in the face of a political change which removed their rationale. Lieut. General Augustus Pitt Rivers carried out excavations at the Wansdyke in Wiltshire in the late 19th century, considering it the remains of a great war in which the south west was being defended. In 1958, Fox and Fox attributed its construction to the pagan Saxons, probably in the late sixth century.

The Western Wansdyke gave its name to the former Wansdyke district of the county of Avon, and also to the Wansdyke constituency.