Site Event/Activity record ECH6735 - Palaeoenvironmental Investigation: Relicks Moss, Station Road, Delamere, Cheshire

Planning permission has been granted to carry out a housing development on the site of the former Marley Tile Works, Station Road, Delamere, Cheshire (NGR 356047 369963). The site lies above the former ‘Relicks Moss’, a ‘lost’ wetland containing peat to a depth of 5m+ in places. A number of prehistoric, Romano- British and early medieval sites and find spots are located within the vicinity of the site, the most notable being Eddisbury Hill, an Iron Age hillfort that was originally built before 200BC, was improved between 1 AD and 50 AD, and re-occupied as an Anglo-Saxon burh during the late 10th century AD. Due to the potential importance of the site, both archaeologically and environmentally, a planning condition was attached to the planning application, requiring palaeoenvironmental sampling and analysis, an archaeological watching brief during groundworks to remove the peat, and the production of a palaeoenvironmental report and archive. The sampling works were carried out during September and October 2017 and the archaeological watching brief carried out between May and October 2018. The analysis of the main peat core sample was carried out between August 2018 and June 2019. The archaeological watching brief did not encounter any significant material remains during the peat extraction. The studied peat core, circa 3.5m long, could not be extracted from a central mire location and a theoretically suboptimal, more marginal site was sampled. Nevertheless, the peat archive revealed an extensive post glacial accumulation history providing both local and regional insights into the longer-term environmental changes and a range of human impacts. The archive appears to be continuous, at least until the more recent past when some possible disruption is evident. The chronology of the core is based on two dating techniques which were combined to provide an age depth profile for the whole core. In comparison with other studies, the number of dating points is relatively good and older palaeoenvironmental studies locally have tended to lack absolute dates tending to rely on relative dating assumptions based on pollen profile characteristics. Nevertheless, the submission of additional samples for AMS Carbon 14 dating, particularly at critical time points e.g., where there are significant changes in the pollen spectrum, could improve the resolution of the core’s chronology and provide greater confidence (with smaller error bars) as to the timing of key features. Such additions would also increase confidence in the age depth model for the core. The presence of cereal pollen within sections of the core dated within the Mesolithic period is potentially important. Further detailed analysis of the ‘cereal’ pollens by a specialist palynologist experienced in working with contexts associated with British prehistory would be crucial in order to determine whether the pollens are ‘cereal-like’ or true cereals. (1)