Monument record 7475 - Congleton Moss

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.187-8 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Congleton Moss was investigated by the North West Wetlands project, an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire, undertaken between 1993-95. It forms part of a series of wetlands in the area extending from Wilmslow in the north to Macclesfield in the east and Sandbach and Congleton in the south. Within this region a variety of wetland types are present from small basin mires west of Macclesfield to large mosses such as Danes Moss and Lindow Moss. The wetlands also display a wide variation in their degree of preservation. The group comprises two contrasting landscapes with the majority of wetlands in a region termed the ‘marginal belt’, with a smaller group centred around Bag Mere, on the fringes of the Cheshire Plain. The majority of the wetlands have developed in depressions and hollows in the surface of the varied glacial deposits.

Congleton Moss, together with the area known as Mossley (Mossley Moss, CHER 15474), lie to the south-east of Congleton. There are frequent references to 'the Mosse' in documents from the fourteenth century onwards. A local writer, T.Cooper (1896), decribes the moss as having been over 100 acres in extent at the end of the eighteenth century, with peat between one and ten feet in depth. He also comments that the moss is gradually being cultivated and the peat removed. Burdett's map of 1777 shows a large moss, lying largely to the north of the small area of peat remaining today. Much of the old field pattern depicted on the Tithe Map of 1843 still survives today, with long, narrow fields, or 'moss rooms', running north-west/south-east into the centre of the moss, evidence of peat cutting. In the Tithe Apportionment the strips are sub-divided into smaller fields called, for example, Moss Piece, Far Moss Piece, Middle Moss Piece and Near Moss Piece. The field pattern which survives today reflects the various stages of enclosure on the moss; the pattern on the south side, which borders open country, is composed of large, regular fields, still with 'moss' names, much different to the long, narrow fields on the north side. The Enclosure Act for Congleton dates to 1795, it is extremely detailed, formalising the boundaries of the moss rooms and listing the individuals entitled to cut peat within them. By the time of the Tithe Award, the pattern laid down in the Enclosure Act had been fully implemented.

Congleton Moss lies within the marginal belt of morainic deposits in Cheshire, and for the Wetlands Survey, this provided an opportunity to examine an area of arable, on the borders of a marginal belt wetland. Unfortunately the amount of arable available proved to be very restricted, covering 4 ha. The field did, however straddle the boundary between mineral soil and deep peat, with a broad expanse of intervening organic soil or skirtland. Unfortunately no finds were recovered during this exercise and the greatest interest continues to lie in the pattern of long thin fields on the moss, which are thought to represent the boundaries of former peat cuttings. Pasture within these boundaries proved to be devoid of further archaeological features.

Palaeoecological fieldwork was limited to assessment of the remaining environmental archive. A relict area of peat up to 3m thick remains at the site covered with semi-natural (Molinia dominated) vegetation communities. The stratigraphy suggests that the mire originated as a fen-carr. Pollen spot samples from the basal wood peat show that it is exceptionally rich in pollen of trees and shrubs and indicate that it may have originated from either Flandrian II or III. Eriphorum / Calluna-dominated mire communities succeeded this stage and were in turn superseded by a community rich in S imbricatum while an S sect Cuspidata pool peat interrupts the sequence between 0.6 - 0.7m.

<2> Dodgson J McN, 1970-2, 1981, The Place-Names of Cheshire, Vol. I p.288 & Vol. II p.65 (Book). SCH3228.

<3> Birks H J B, 1965, Pollen Analytical Investigations at Holcroft Moss, Lancashire, and Lindow Moss, Cheshire, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Jul, 1965), p.299-314 (Article in Journal). SCH1518.

A pollen core from the site was published in 1965.

<4> Edwards R, 2008, The Cheshire Historic Landscape Characterisation (Report). SCH4463.

This is a relatively small area of surviving moss, on the southern edge of Congleton. Only 1km wide, this is a tiny remnant of what was once a larger area of mossland that extended well over 1000ha in area. It is now thoroughly dried out and experiencing rapid succession to birch scrub. Dominant species are purple moor grass and heather with cross-leaved heath in some ditches. The moss is comprised of a series of enclosed radiating moss-rooms which forma fan-shaped field pattern. Some water-filled ditches and areas of wet ground betray the mossland origins of this very flat pastoral farmland with regular field boundaries and little woodland cover. There is a wide variation in the condition of the hedgerows; in some areas they are largely intact, but in others there are significant gaps.