Monument record 15384 - Brookhouse Moss

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.89-90, 187 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Brookhouse Moss was investigated by the North West Wetlands project, an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire, undertaken between 1993-95. The site, which has SSSI status, may have developed in a linear salt subsidence hollow. It has up to circa 3.5m of wood and monocot peats overlying silty clays. Three cores were taken from north-south across the hollow, however, no proxy pollen stratigraphy was possible, but on stratigraphical grounds, it is likely that a well preserved archive spanning at least the later prehistoric period survives.

Brookhouse Moss is one of five small mosses contained within Smallwood Township, the other mosses are Rue, Spen, Marton and Birch. By the early nineteenth century very little land, even former common land, remained un-enclosed. However, unusually, in the township of Smallwood, the old tradition of turbary rights seems to have survived until at least the mid-nineteenth century, illustrated by the fact that all five of the Smallwood mosses are shown divided into moss-rooms on the Tithe Award of 1839. The apportionment reveals that virtually every tenant held some moss-rooms, usually spread amongst two or three of the mosses. Smallwood Township is the best and most complete example of moss-rooms and turbary rights so far located in Cheshire. As well as the moss rooms there are numerous moss field names scattered around the township.