Monument record 15502 - Moss Wood, formerly Cholmondeley Moss

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.139-140, 151 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Moss Wood 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 group of wetlands in the south-west of Cheshire, between Cholmondeley and the Shropshire border. The wetland type most common in this region is the mere, many of which are ringed by extensive areas of peat or other waterlogged deposits, with the most common land-use being pasture. These wetlands lie within, or on the fringes of, the belt of glacial deposits known as the Whitchurch moraine, which extends roughly along the county border and marks the southern boundary of the Cheshire plain. This landscape is characterised by the presence of numerous sandy ridges, hummocks and outwash plains and is thought to mark the boundary of the ice sheet during a temporary period of stagnation at the close of the last glaciation.

Moss Wood lies to the south of Cholmondeley Castle and is almost certainly the site of Cholmondeley Moss visited by Leland in the sixteenth century. However, field investigations undertaken as part of the North West Wetlands study, revealed that only small patches of organic soil still survive at this site.

A Bronze Age flat axe was found in Moss Wood (CHER 2309).