Monument record 15506 - Norbury Meres

<1> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4), p.15, 138 (Monograph). SCH3260.

Norbury Meres were investigated by the North West Wetlands project, an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire, undertaken between 1993-95. They form 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 the meres at Norbury, 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.

Many of the natural water bodies and wetlands within Cheshire have extensive deposits which contain palaeo-environmental information on the landscapes (and land use) of up to 12,000 years ago. They also have the potential to preserve chance archaeological finds or sites. For example, the early medieval log boats from Baddiley Mere and Cholmondeley Castle, and the timber trackway discovered in the deposits around Marbury Mere.