Monument record 15396 - Basin Mire at Massey's Lodge

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.192 (Monograph). SCH3260.

A basin mire to the south-west of Massey's Lodge5 was investigated by the North West Wetlands project, an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire, undertaken between 1993-95. The small (5 hectare) basin mire is surrounded by forestry but supports an undisturbed, active mire vegetation with small birch and pine trees reminiscent of a Scandinavian wooded mire.

Four metres of organic sediments exist at this site including an organic band intercalated between two basal silty clays highly suggestive of a late Devensian, late-Glacial depositional sequence. Above this was a sequence of gyttjas, Phramites peats, Spahagnum imbricaturm peat, Eriophorum/Calluna peat, wood peats and final upper Sphagnum peats. Macroscopic charcoal was also observed at 2.5m and 2.65m depth. Examination of four samples show the vegetation changes from grassland to a grassland with increasing scrub and heath, to a mixed deciduous woodland in the upper sample. Due to a lack of pollen samples from the underlying silty clays, it is not possible to be sure that the late-Glacial record is preserved at this site, but it looks likely on stratigraphic grounds, so could provide a record for the early to later Mesolithic period.