Grimstrup Coppice

12km northeast of Esbjerg lies another popular area of natural beauty, Grimstrup Krat. It is Denmark’s largest oak coppice – a small remnant of the great forests that once covered large parts of the country in ancient times. On its northeastern edge is Kampdiget, an earthworks structure probably dating from the Iron Age. The preserved part of the rampart is 200m long, 4.5m wide and approximately one metre tall. Originally it would have been about a kilometre in length, but it was never strong enough to have had any military significance. The rampart and the associated one-metre deep moat are oriented towards the east and cut across the old Kolding-Varde road, so it is likely that the structure marked a border between different ruling groups, enabling traffic to be controlled and taxes to be imposed.