Welcome
WHAT IS LINDOW MOSS?
Lindow Moss is one of the largest lowland peatlands in Cheshire, shown clearly on Burdett’s 1777 map of Cheshire as Lindow Common. In 1984 Lindow Moss came to international prominence with the discovery of an almost intact Iron Age bog body – Lindow Man. This is said to be one of the most visited exhibits in the British Museum.
HABITAT AND HISTORY
Lindow Man
Lindow Man was found in 1984, during peat-cutting on Lindow Moss. Consisting of a torso and head, he is also known as Lindow II and a separate leg, found only 15m away (known as Lindow IV) may be part of the same body, severed by the peat-cutting machinery. Lindow Man was not the only person to have been buried on the bog: a human skull (Lindow I) and parts of a headless body (Lindow II) were also found on separate occasions. Lindow Man has been radiocarbon dated to the 2BCE-AD119, so he may have died during the turbulent events of the arrival of the Romans in the north of Britain. Continue reading
Social History
Humans have lived in and around peatlands for millennia. There is evidence of peat cutting for fuel in Roman times and again from the Middle Ages which continues today; across the world peatlands have been damaged by drainage for agriculture and peat harvesting. While peatlands were described as “wastes” on the 18th and 19th century maps, they have always been deeply cultural landscapes of importance to local people.
Landscape Over Time
Lindow Moss lies in the north of the Cheshire Plain and the present-day landscape of this area is largely a product of the last glaciation, the Devensian. Recent research estimates that Lindow would have been covered by an ice sheet around 270m thick approximately 21,000 years ago. The ice then receded to the north, leaving a cold desert with a sander-type landscape (not unlike southern Iceland today) until around 9,000 years ago, as well as sediments comprising glacial tills (formerly boulder clay) and meltwater deposits. Continue reading
Plants, Animals, Insects and Birds
Lindow Moss is a unique home to a variety of peatland habitats – a large area of peat bog mixed with wet heath, fen, oak-birch woodland, open water pools and ditches. Despite years of drainage and peat cutting, Lindow Moss remains built on a substantial volume of peat, several metres deep in places, giving rise to the unusual waterlogged, acidic conditions characteristic of healthy peatlands, key to supporting a unique assemblage of plant species. Continue reading
LINDOW MOSS TIMELINE
