Images courtesy of:Cheshire County Council

Chester City Council Archaeological ServiceEnglish Heritage Photographic Library

The Grosvenor Museum, Chester City CouncilIllustrations by Dai Owen

Ordnance Survey Statement of PurposeThe Ordnance Survey mapping within thisdocument is provided by Cheshire CountyCouncil under licence from the Ordnance

Survey. It is intended to show the distributionof archaeological sites in order to fulfil its

public function to make available Council heldpublic domain information. Persons viewing

this mapping should contact Ordnance SurveyCopyright for advice where they wish to

licence Ordnance Survey mapping/map datafor their own use. The OS web site can be

found at www.ordsvy.gov.uk

4

Manors, Moats andMonasteries

Manors, Moats andMonasteries

Medieval

Images courtesy of:The British Museum

British Wool Marketing BoardCheshire County Council

Chester City Council Archaeological ServiceThe Grosvenor Museum, Chester City Council

Warrington Library, Museum and Archive ServiceIllustrations by Dai Owen

Ordnance Survey Statement of PurposeThe Ordnance Survey mapping within thisdocument is provided by Cheshire CountyCouncil under licence from the Ordnance

Survey. It is intended to show the distributionof archaeological sites in order to fulfil its

public function to make available Council heldpublic domain information. Persons viewing

this mapping should contact Ordnance SurveyCopyright for advice where they wish to

licence Ordnance Survey mapping/map datafor their own use. The OS web site can be

found at www.ordsvy.gov.uk

1

Barrows toBog BodiesBarrows toBog Bodies

Stone Age | Bronze Age | Iron Age

Until around 10,000years ago, Cheshirelay under ice. Whenthis melted, it leftbehind a landscapeof marshy lowlandsscattered with smalllakes and divided by high sandstoneridges.

Thick forest coveredthe land so peoplechose areas withlighter woodlandcover to live in, suchas high ground andlakeshores.

50,000-10,000 BC

Old Stone Age(Palaeolithic)In the beginning...

The Ice Age was notcontinuous. Therewere times when theclimate warmed andvegetation thrived,creating the idealhabitat for our earlyancestors.

People may havebeen living inCheshire by 50,000BC, as a Stone Agehand axe has beenfound at the easternedge of the county.

10,000-4000BC

Middle Stone Age(Mesolithic)Survival

These people huntedanimals, fished andgathered roots, nutsand seeds to survive.

Their weapons andtools have been foundscattered acrossCheshire. These aremostly small flintblades, fixed to bone

or antler to createarrows and

spears.

4000-2500BC

New Stone Age (Neolithic)The early farmers

Farming began inmainland Europe inaround 6500BC. By4000 BC the idea offarming had arrived inBritain. People startedto grow crops andkeep animals, creatinga reliable source offood. This meant thatinstead of movingaround to hunt food, permanentsettlements werebuilt.

Early varieties ofwheat, barley andoats would have beenthe main crops. Bones of animalsthought to resemblebreeds like Soay sheep and Dextercattle have been found.

2500-800BC

Bronze Age Barrow builders

In the Bronze Age,permanentsettlements were wellestablished. Peoplewere notmovingaround all thetime and theyacquired morebelongings.

High qualitymetal tools andornaments andhighly decoratedpottery were made.

800BC-43AD

Iron Age Tribal kingdoms

The people of Britainwere divided intotribes. The inhabitantsof Cheshire at this

time werecalled theCornovii. Theskills to

produce andshape ironweredeveloped in

this period. Ironis easier to work

than bronze and ismore useful for tools.

Above:Gawsworth beaker

Left: Soay sheep

Tatton axe

Who Lived in Cheshire?

Flint tool

Where did they live?Temporary campsExcavations at Tatton Park have found aMiddle Stone Age flint working site. About900 flints were recovered and the remains ofa shelter were identified. There is evidencethat people were making flint tools in a cavein Carden Park.

Early farmsExcavations at Tatton found evidence of briefNew Stone Age farming. A scatter of flintartefacts and burnt grain was recovered witha radiocarbon date of around 2600BC. AtOversley Farm in Wilmslow, the remains of aStone Age timber longhouse were foundalong with grain storage pits.

Stone…the prehistoric toolkitStone axes would have been an essential partof prehistoric life. Cheshire sandstone doesnot make good axes so stone tools wereimported. Prehistoric “axe factories” existed in Cumbria, Wales and Cornwall.Stone was quarried here, roughed out intoaxe shapes and then taken away to befinished and traded. Axes of all these types of stone have been found in Cheshire.

The Stone Age

Cave in Carden Park

Some axes were never used and are thought to have been symbols of power

and status such as this jadeite axe, imported from continental Europe.

Attached to long woodenhandles, these axes wereused to clear the thickforests to allow cropcultivation and grazing.

Did you know...You can chop a tree down in 30minutes using a polished stone axe.Don’t try this at home!

Flint was used to make smaller tools such as arrowheads, scrapers (used for working animal hides) and knives.

PotteryTiny fragments of plain hand-made Stone Agepottery have been found in Cheshire thoughthere are no examples of complete vessels.We know what this pottery would havelooked like (below), as we can compare thefragments to complete vessels from otherparts of Britain.

Death and burialIn Stone Age Britain this is characterised bymonumental tombs for the dead. There arethree Stone Ages burial sites in Cheshire. Theyare a crop mark of a suspected mortuaryenclosure at Churton, a possible long barrowat Somerford and the Bridestones atCongleton.

The BridestonesThe Bridestones is a StoneAge chambered cairn, aburial mound of loosestones over stone burialchambers. This kind ofstructure is associated withhigh status burials. Recordsshow that in 1764 thetomb was 100 metres longand 11 metres wide. Thestones that made up thecairn were later removedfor road building, revealingthe chamber inside .

Today you can see theremains of one of threechambers and the portalstones at the southernentrance.

The Bridestones, Congleton

The Stone Age continued

Key● Findspots of Neolithic ● stone axes● Sites mentioned in ● the text�

© Crown copyright. All rights reserved.

Cheshire County Council Licence No. 100019582. 2004

Stone Age Cheshire

Warrington

Macclesfield

Congleton

Northwich

Runcorn

Ellesmere Port

Chester

Nantwich

Churton

Oversley FarmTatton

Carden

Somerford�

Bridestones

Where did they live?An early Bronze Age farmstead and trackwaywere found at Oversley Farm, Wilmslow, beforethe second Manchester Airport runway wasbuilt. This is an important discovery as we havelittle information about lowland settlements ofthis period. There is also evidence of BronzeAge occupation at the upland sites of BeestonCastle and Eddisbury Hillfort.

Masters of Metal…Bronze Age toolsThe first metal to be worked was copper.Copper ore is green or blue in colour and themetal can be extracted by heating withcharcoal. The resulting metal is soft enough tobe hammered into shape. Copper mixed withtin makes bronze, which can be cast to createmore elaborate tools. Not only did ourancestors discover how to work metal, they

knew where to find it too. The open castcopper mines of Alderley Edge date back to prehistoric times.

The style of bronze axeschanged over time. The earliestform was a flat axe cast in an

open mould. Palstaves werecast in two piece

moulds andsocketed axes andspear heads werecast around a claycore to give ahollow centre.Axes of all typeshave beenfound inCheshire.

Like the stone axes before them, thesemetal axes needed to be fixed to a wooden

or antler handle. Some axes had loops to helptie the axe head into place.

Not everyone would have used the new metaltools. Stone and flint implements were stillimportant and most people would haveknown how to make them.

The Bronze Age

Alderley Edge copper mines

Arrowhead from Brereton

Bronze Age axe from Twemlow

Socketed axe from Helsby

PotteryHand-made pots wereused for storing andcooking food, but it istheir use as containers forcremation burials that hasensured the survival ofcomplete vessels over thousands of years.

Death and burialDuring the Bronze Age, round barrows were acommon method of honouring the dead.These are distinctive circular burial sitescreated by digging a circular ditch andplacing earth and stones in a mound over aburial or cremation. In Cheshire, thesemounds are usually sand. A single barrowcould be re-used for several later burials.There are over 140 Bronze Age barrows in

Cheshire. Fewsurvive to anygreat height andsome are visibleonly as ringditch cropmarks.Both cremationsand burials have

been found inthese graves. Reconstruction of a Bronze Age barrow

Barrow excavation atSouthworth Hall, Croft

Bronze Age urn from Betchton

The Bronze Age continued

© Crown copyright. All rights reserved.

Cheshire County Council Licence No. 100019582. 2004

Bronze Age and Iron Age Cheshire

Warrington

Macclesfield

Congleton

Northwich

Runcorn

Ellesmere Port

Chester

Nantwich

Beeston

Baddiley Mere

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Oversley Farm

Bruen Stapleford

Eddisbury

Lindow�

Alderley Edge

Key● Findspots of ● Bronze Age axes● Sites mentioned in text● Bronze Age burials● Iron Age hillforts

Where did they live?The settlements of Iron Age Cheshire can be separated into upland and lowland. In the late Bronze Age the population sought out the higher ground and this continued into the Iron Age. There would have also been scattered farmsteads across the Cheshire Plain. Aerial survey has identified a number of cropmark enclosures which may be Iron Age settlements.

Iron Age Hillforts The sandstone ridges that cross Cheshire were attractive sites for defended settlements and there are a number of Iron Age hillforts in Cheshire. Most of them are promontory forts, which use a natural spur of land with steep sides. They

have a short line ofearthworks across the neck to create adefensive enclosure.Inside there wouldhave been roundhouses, animalenclosures andstorage buildings.

Iron Age FarmsteadsThe sites of Iron Age lowland settlements werechosen because they were well drained andsuitable for farming. Fencing or earthworkswould have enclosed these farmsteads. Recentexcavation for a gas pipeline has identifieda settlement at Bruen Stapleford. Thedomestic buildings from this site wereround houses. These circular buildingswere built of timber with wattle anddaub walls and a thatched roof.

Making a livingGrowing crops and raising animals was an

important part of everyday life. As well asfarming, salt production was an importantactivity in Iron Age Cheshire. Brine fromthe springs of central Cheshire was boiledto create salt crystals which were thenpacked in crude pottery vessels to be driedand transported. Fragments of this fragilehand made pottery known as CheshireVCP (Very Coarse Pottery) have been

found at a number of places within andbeyond Cheshire, indicating the extent ofthe salt trade in the Iron Age. The earliest

VCP dates to around 2400 years ago.

Coinage was introduced to Britain by contact with the Belgic people of Gaul. Some tribes copied this style of coin andbegan to mint their own. The Cornovii did notproduce their own coinage though coins ofother tribes have been found here, suggestingthere were trade links with other tribes.

Meols on the Wirral is thought to have been along distance trading settlement sinceprehistoric times. The site was destroyed by

sea erosion but thousands of artefacts havebeen recovered from the shore includingsome Iron Age pins and coins.

Iron Age gold coin from Warmingham

The Iron Age

Eddisbury Hillfort

Reconstruction of a hillfort

Getting aroundAn Iron Age logboat was found in 1911 whilstcleaning Baddiley Mere. This logboat, madefrom a single oak tree, proves that thewaterways of Cheshire were used for transportand probably trade, during the Iron Age.

Baddiley logboat

Death and burialThe normal burial practices of theIron Age population of Cheshire areunknown. We know about wherethese people lived but there is littleinformation about how they died,with the exception of one startlingarchaeological discovery…

Lindow Man – A sticky end Lindow Moss was originally an extensive peatbog but it has been reduced to one tenth ofits original size by centuries of peat cutting. There are records of men and cattle being lostin this peat bog but no one was prepared forthe well preserved foot that was discoveredduring peat extraction in August 1984. Theremainder of the body was found still in thepeat and a block was cut around it so it couldbe carefully excavated at the British Museum.

The body was that of a 25 year old man,about 5ft 7ins high, of robust frame andbearded. He was naked except for a fox furband round his left arm.

He met a violent end with blows to the head.His throat was then cut and he was thrown intothe bog. Analysis of the contents of his stomachshowed his last meal was a coarse wheat andbarley bread. The circumstances of the death ofLindow Man suggest a ritual killing.

The Iron Age continued

Lindow Man

Radiocarbon dating This is a way of dating organic material. Allliving things have a known content of Carbon14 (a radioactive isotope of Carbon). Thisbegins to break down on death. By measuringthe amount of Carbon 14 remaining in anobject we can work out how long ago it was alive.

Cropmarks are visible changes in the growthof vegetation that may indicate a buriedfeature. These distinctions can usually only beidentified from aerial photographs.

Scheduled Monument A site designated as being of nationalimportance by the government. This gives themonument legal protection against disturbance.

Mortuary enclosures are thought to havebeen used to house the dead prior to burial in tombs.

Glossary

Cropmark of possible Iron Age enclosure

Prehistoric copper mines

Alderley Edge, MacclesfieldMap – OS explorer 267 – OS Ref 861775National Trust. Numerous paths throughwoodlands. Pay and display car park on theB5087 is open all year from dawn to dusk.(except 25th December).

Stone Age burial sites Bridestones, Congleton Map – OS Explorer 268 - OS ref SJ 906622 Off Dial Lane, to the east of Congleton. On private land.

Bronze Age round barrows

Robin Hoods TumpMap – OS Explorer 257 - OS Ref SJ 575599 Can be seen from Vale Road, SE of TilstonFearnall off the A51. On private land.

Hillforts

Helsby HillMap – OS Explorer 267 - OS Ref SJ 493754 National Trust. Car park on Alvanley Road. Afoot-path at the end of Hill Road South leadsto the top of the hill.

Maiden Castle Map – OS Explorer 257 - OS Ref SJ 498529 National Trust. The Sandstone Trail atBickerton crosses this double ditched hillfort.Information boards at National Trust car parksat Duckington and Bickerton show way-marked paths to the hillfort.

Woodhouse HillfortMap – OS Explorer 267 - OS Ref SJ 511757 The hillfort is within a Woodland Trust wood.There are a number of paths including asection of the Sandstone trail, which pass thehillfort.

Museums

Congleton MuseumDisplays include prehistoric artefacts from theCongleton area.

The Grosvenor Museum, ChesterThe Chester Timeline gallery has a smalldisplay of prehistoric artefacts.

Warrington Museum and Art GalleryLocal prehistoric finds are on permanentdisplay in the ‘Early Warrington’ gallery.

Sites to Visit

www.cheshire.gov.uk/archaeology