Monument record 15467 - Walkers Heath

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.81, 95 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Walkers Heath was investigated by the North West Wetlands project, an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire, undertaken between 1993-95. It lies amongst 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.

Walkers Heath, centred on Walkers Heath Farm, possesses the characteristics of the morainic landscape typical of this region, with numerous small relict valley mires set in the hollows between sandy hillocks. At the time of survey, some 50 hectares of land was planted with cereals providing a dual opportunity to establish a pattern of artefact distribution in an area where, typically, such data are obscured by pasture, together with testing the palaeoecological potential of the valley mires characteristic of this landscape.

The quantity of artefactual material recovered was limited, especially given the proximity of a number of barrows, and was restricted to four flint artefacts (two scrapers, a blade and an untouched flake). However, the palaeoecological investigations were far more productive. Charcoal bands visible in the peat prompted the extraction of a three metre long core from the deepest surviving peats. Results indicated that peat growth was initiated during the transition from the late Devesian to post-Glacial (perhaps circa 10,000 cal BC). Open grassland with some birch, juniper, and willow scrub covered the surrounding landscape during this early period while the incipient valley mire was occupied by birch scrub and fen-carr. The peat deposits appear to have been truncated beyond Flandrian II.

However, perhaps the most significant event of this early phase of vegetation history was found at 2.42m to 2.54m depth in the peat where there is evidence of a clearance phase, associated with burning; this changed the composition of both local and regional vegetation in the area and is potentially evidence of Mesolithic human activity. The pollen archive shows a dramatic reduction in Betula pollen, together with a pronounced maxima of grass, herbs and charcoal; this is coincident with a change in the macrofossil record from wood peat to sedge peat, along with sphagnum growth. These data indicate a change from a wooded to an open mire environment, dating sometime between 8420 and 8061 cal BC and 8955 and 8258 cal BC. Further occurrence of macroscopic and microscopic charcoal in the pollen archive at Walkers Heath may be evidence of other episodes of possible anthropogenic significance.

The study at Walkers Heath illustrates the potential information contained within the relict peat archives surviving in the moraine lands of the marginal belt, however, these are increasingly under threat due to processes such as agricultural drainage.