What's Wat's Dyke? Wrexham Comic Heritage Trail

We hope this comic heritage trail for Wrexham helps introduce you to Britain's third-longest ancient monument.Wat's Dyke was built in the early medieval period (most likely between the late 7th and early 9th centuries AD). Today, it is a fragmentary bank and ditch surviving in varied states of preservation. When newly built, it was most likely designed as a continuous construction by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia to dominate and control its western frontier with Welsh rivals. It runs over c. 64km from Basingwerk (Flintshire) to Maesbury (Shropshire).The map shows you where you can visit the monument today, and the comic panels tell the story of Wat's Dyke at each location. And if you'd like to know even more about Wat's dyke and other similar monuments, there are suggestions for further reading as well as online links to recent research at the end of the booklet.

Making Markets

This chapter examines the process of market-building on the western frontier, focusing in particular on the process through which the expansion of the railroad network in the late 19th century linked towns to the grain buyers who owned and operated the elevators used to load grain on to railcars. It begins by describing western market-building as part of a larger transcontinental project designed to link the agrarian periphery to existing urban centers, leading to the creation of a vast market network. Rail lines played a unique role in this context, serving as a venue for the creation of distinct market communities defined by the relationship between towns and elevator owners. Using formal network analysis, it is shown that market communities differed in terms of not only in terms of their size and geographic structure, but in the centrality of the elevator owners with which the lines partnered.