Monument record 315 - Peckforton Mere

<1> County Historic Environment Record, 1973-1985, Cheshire Archaeological Bulletin, 8/10-11 Schoenwetter J 1982 (Journal/Periodical). SCH565.

Peckforton Mere has formed in a kettle hole left by the retreating glaciers. It is filled by the River Gowy. Sediment analysis and pollen analysis have built up a picture of land use in the Gowy Basin into prehistory. Agricultural peaks occur in the eighteenth century and the Romano-British period. In prehistory, there is a significant oak forest clearance between 1500 and 1200 BC but relatively little change from then to the Roman period.

<2> Harris, B.E. (ed), 1987, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume I, 1/105 Longley D 1981 (Book). SCH3556.

<3> Schoenwetter J, 1982, Environmental Archaeology of the Peckforton Hills (Article in Journal). SCH1125.

Analysis of sediment samples at Peckforton Mere indicates that between 3000 bc and approximately 2000 bc the number of oak trees in the oak forest of the area diminished, but the amount of forested land was not reduced and cultivation seems not to have been a widespread practice. From about 2000 bc to roughly 1500 bc, episodes of forest clearance and cultivation and episodes of forest recovery are indicated. Between about 1500 bc and 1200 bc, the pollen record suggests major oak forest clearance took place. From 1200 bc until shortly before the Roman occupation of Britain, additional forest reduction seems not to have occurred, but cultivation took place and soil erosion proceeded at a high rate. This evidence indicates that the area was occupied during the Bronze and Iron Ages by people whose land use practices cleared a significant amount of oak forest from the landscape and replaced it with crop land and pastures.

The Peckforton Mere pollen sequence also suggests that additional forest clearance and plant cultivation has continued since Roman times. In addition, magnetic measurements of the Peckforton deposits indicate that a moderate increase in erosion took place during the Roman period and a very large increase in erosional intensity occurred in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.

<4> Twigger S N, 1983, Environmental Change in Lowland Cheshire (Monograph). SCH1126.

<5> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER, O'Sullivan P 1984 (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

Later coring took evidence back further in prehistory. The Mere deposits are varved in long sequences allowing annual variations to be studied. A full report of the palynological analysis awaited.

<6> Leah, MD; Wells, CE; Appleby, C; Huckerby, E, 1997, The Wetlands of Cheshire (North West Wetlands Survey 4) (Monograph). SCH3260.

The North West Wetlands project, undertaken between 1993-95, was an archaeological and paleoecological study of the varied wetlands of Cheshire. It includes Peckforton Mere which forms part of a series of wetlands around Delamere on the Mid-Cheshire Ridge, the sandstone escarpment which divides the eastern and western portions of the Cheshire Plain. During the last glaciation, the Mouldsworth drainage channel opened out here onto the east Cheshire Plain. The channel marks the point where a late-Glacial lake formed in front of the ice, which had temporarily stabilised along the western margins of the Ridge. Outwash sands were deposited in this lake and the final disappearance of glacial conditions resulted in an irregular surface, containing numerous hollows left by melting ice blocks. It was in these depressions that many of Delamere's wetlands subsequently developed.

<7> Cheshire Historic Environment Record, 1989, Jill Collens' Aerial Photographs, 6.0551-3 (Aerial Photograph). SCH9711.