Beech Bottom Dyke is a large ditch up to 33 feet deep running for almost a mile at the northern edge of St Albans. It is of considerable archaeological importance, contains a valuable area of ancient woodland flora, and is an area of green infrastructure which deserves improved public access.
To conserve and improve this area, the Beech Bottom Dyke Greenspace Action Plan (GAP) was produced by The Countryside Management Service (CMS) in collaboration with FoBH in 2013 and you can read it here (pdf).
We now understand that there has not been any physical action on the ground delivering the Beech Bottom Dyke GAP apart from the general ground maintenance work. The CMS has been working with colleagues at SADC to develop a funding bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund and also looking at the consenting process required with Historic England (English Heritage) for the works to be able to proceed on the Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM) should we be successful in gaining funding.
Discussions are also underway to see if it would be possible to include a budget to carry out archaeological survey work on the Dyke to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the feature and its place in history.