Monument record 15381 - Beeston Mosses (Beeston Moss 1 and 2)

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.185-6 (Monograph). SCH3260.

The Beeston Mosses (Beeston 1 and 2), two small basin mires, were recorded by the North West Wetlands project, an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire, undertaken between 1993-95. They form part of a series of wetlands around Delamere on the Mid-Cheshire Ridge, the sandstone escarpment which divides the eastern and western portions of the Cheshire Plain. During the last glaciation, the Mouldsworth drainage channel opened out here onto the east Cheshire Plain. The channel marks the point where a late-Glacial lake formed in front of the ice, which had temporarily stabilised along the western margins of the Ridge. Outwash sands were deposited in this lake and the final disappearance of glacial conditions resulted in an irregular surface, containing numerous hollows left by melting ice blocks. It was in these depressions that many of Delamere's wetlands subsequently developed. At the time of survey, both Beeston sites were heavily drained, forested and in use as pheasant coverts.

Beeston 1, the larger of the two mosses, was badly degraded and very heavily forested. It proved to contain circa 2m of organic sediment (including highly humified Eriophorum/Calluna peat and fen peat dominated by Scorpidium scorpioides), however, the upper 1.4m consisted of disturbed ground.

Beeston 2, located further to the east, although smaller was better preserved and retained circa 2.5m of organic infill consisting of a basal tripartite organic silt-bryophyte peat-organic silt sequence, followed by fen-carr peats and fnally upper Eriophorum/Calluna peats.

Four samples were examined at 0.3m, 1.3m, 2.3m and 2.55m depth. They show a typical vegetational sequence of the late Devensian/late Glacial period with the vegetation changing from open grassland with some birch to an open birch community and back to grassland. Finally there is a return to a birch community. Charcoal was recorded in all samples except at 2.55m. Preservation was good at 1.3m and 0.3m but poor at 2.3 and 2.55m. The site provides a record of the late-Glacial but if Flandrian deposits did form these have been truncated.