The monument includes the buried and upstanding remains of the middle part of a late Iron Age or Romano-British linear boundary earthwork (Gryme’s Dyke) located some 3.5km WSW of Colchester town centre. The section of the dyke extends over a distance of about 1.7km, following a NNW-SSE alignment southward from London Road towards the rear of Ladell Close (east of Stanway Green). This route, which also serves as part of the boundary of the Borough of Colchester, formally ran through open countryside. It now provides a wooded corridor and pedestrian access separating modern housing estates and industrial areas The bank (or rampart) at the northern end of Gryme’s Dyke Middle has been destroyed by gravel quarries which have since been levelled to form the northern part of the Lexden King George Playing Field. The ditch, however, which lay to the west of the bank, is thought to survive as a buried feature alongside the playing field, beneath Council Road and the unsurfaced track which forms its continuation to the south. The bank is encountered alongside this track and some 320m south of London Road and remains visible (with minor interruptions) to the southern recorded end of the dyke, averaging 12m wide and 2m high. A section excavated through the bank to the south of Dugard Avenue in 1977 revealed its construction to be of sand and gravel wit h some evidence of revetment to prevent material from collapsing into the ditch. Fragments of pottery and a copied coin of the Emperor Claudius allow the bank to be tentatively dated to the period AD 40-75, perhaps constructed on the eve of the Roman conquest (AD 43), but more probably later and possibly as late as the aftermath of the Boudican revolt (AD 60-61). The bank overlay a buried soil horizon cut by earlier features which included one possible post hole. These contained pottery fragments dating from the period AD 5-25, indicating a still earlier phase of occupation. The ditch remains buried over the entire length of the dyke section, possibly due to the accumulation of silts and a final act of levelling with material taken from the top of the bank around the time of the 1821 Lexden Enclosure Act. Excavations to the south of Dugard Avenue in 1978 found the ditch to measure some 8m in width; its depth is estimated at 3m. The line of the bank is broken by a footpath cut through to the south of Dugard Avenue (the site of the 1977 excavations), a footpath between Stanway Green and Pilborough Way, which crosses the dyke 100m north of the southern terminal, and by the modern carriageway of Peartree Road/Dugard Avenue some 350m further north. Although the bank has been levelled in each case, the buried ditch is thought to survive and is included in the scheduled centre of the dyke section (at the north western corner of Oaklands Avenue) both the bank and the original ditch are absent over a distance of about 18m. Between 1946 and 1948 excavations demonstrated that this was an original entrance through the dyke, complete with a timber gateway. It was subsequently adopted for the route of a Roman road, although use of this road was curtailed at a later stage when the dyke ditch was joined by cutting through the gravelled carriageway. This area retains valuable evidence for the function and development of the dyke and is included in the scheduling. Gryme’s Dyke Middle is part of the westernmost boundary of the territorial oppidum and Roman town of Camulodunum. In total, together with visible and recorded sections to the north of the London Road and south of Stanway Green, (those at Stanway Green form the subject of a separate scheduling), the boundary extended over a distance of approximately 5km between the River Colne to the north and the Roman River to the south. The boundary is thought to have been constructed in several phases. Current theories maintain that the middle and northern parts of the dyke were constructed in the years immediately after the Roman invasion of AD 43 in order to consolidate the western perimeter of the settlements and military encampments positioned to the west of Colchester. The southern section of the dyke (which follows a somewhat different alignment) is thought to have been added at a later stage, perhaps after the Boudican revolt of AD 60-61. The modern made surfaces of all roads and footpaths, together with all garden structures, walls, fences, notice boards and street lights are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath these items is included. <1>