Monument record 15505 - Chapel Mere

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.15, p.136-8 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Chapel Mere 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, including Chapel Mere, however, small basin mires also occur. Pasture is the most common land-use in this region. 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.

Chapel Mere lies within the formal garden (CHER 327/3/0) of Cholmondeley Park and is overlooked from the south-west by the nineteenth century castle and, to the south-east, by the earlier hall (CHER 327/1) and private chapel (CHER 327/2).