Monument record 15383 - Black Lake, Delamere

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.186 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Black Lake is a small basin mire and one of many kettle hole sites scattered through the Delamere Forest area. It 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 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.

The site, a small basin mire, was one of two mires chosen as representative examples from the many kettle hole sites scattered through the Delamere Forest area, the other being a site adjacent to Hatch Mere (CHER 15393). The lake is fringed by a moss which exhibits schwingmoor characteristics. It proved to contain in excess of 5.5m of organic sediments, the lower half of which comprised gyttjas and organic silts. The upper stratigraphy, which was interrupted by water lenses, comprised Eriophorum/Calluna/Sphagnum peats. A sample, taken at 5.40m depth, produced a pollen spectrum characteristic of the Windermere Interstadial (late Devensian II) or the immediate post-Glacial (Flandrian Ia) with high values of Betula pollen (probably B.nana)) and a variety of herbs. Some charcoal was also recorded. Pollen was abundant and well preserved. Potentially, the site could generate a record for the major part of the Flandrian period, although in the absence of any samples from the top metre of sediments, it is not possible to know if they have been truncated.