THE PEAT MOSSES OF THE FYLDE 31 



moss in character, and it is difficult to consider the draining of the moss and 

 mere separately. 



Thus the 1731 10 proposal of drainage was concerned with a ' standing poole 

 or water,' but in 1 780 it was stated that ' such a fall is obtained that if the 

 land-owners in Marton perform their part the moss will be effectively 

 drained.' 11 



By the beginning of the nineteenth century, therefore, the maps indicate 

 an area of water less than a mile square, and by the present time the site of the 

 mere is marked by one of the few remaining areas of incompletely drained 

 moss. 



VI. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 



PHYSICAL conditions, and especially the mosses, suggest reasons for paucity of 

 prehistoric finds. The Pennmes and their slopes towards the Fylde have 

 yielded small worked flints of types which were brought into Britain with or 

 after the disappearance of the Pleistocene Ice, but lasted on in use in some 

 cases until the historical Middle Ages, and they may accordingly be found 

 along with objects from later periods. In the latter half of the third millennium 

 B.C., there spread into Britain the arts of cultivation, stone-grinding, pottery- 

 making, and so on, and at about the same time there developed coastwise 

 maritime intercourse. Ground or polished stone implements have been found 

 in a few places in the Fylde, two at Weeton, two near Blackpool, and one at 

 Salwick, but these again need not antedate such changes as the introduction of 

 metals ; they also remained in use afterwards for a time. A flat bronze or 

 copper axe with lateral expansion of the edge has been recorded near Pilling 

 Hall. Weeton has yielded a bionze axe of the type with high flanges, but, as 

 yet, no transverse stop-ridge, while from Marton there is one with a stop-ridge 

 and a lateral loop for attachment ; this latter had a handle a yard long when 

 it was found. A hoard of eight socketed celts, some spear-heads and a dagger 

 was found at Winmarleigh Moss, Over-Wyre, in the early nineteenth century, 

 as also a spear-head in Stalmine Moss, Over-Wyre, and two socketed leaf- 

 shaped spear-heads near Preston. At Copthorpe, near Garstang, about a mile 

 from the Winmarleigh find, there was found a bronze sword of Peake's Type B, 

 27.5 inches long, with six medium rivet holes. 1 No pottery that might antedate 

 the introduction of metal is known from the Fylde, but cinerary urns of the 

 Bronze Age are known from Weeton, and, some distance inland from the Fylde, 

 at the interesting monument at Bleasdale. Here a circle of oak posts surrounded 

 by a timber-lined ditch had a fore-court between the above circle and an 



10 History of Poulton-le-Fylde. Chetham Society. 

 "Ibid. 

 1 See Antiq. Journal, April, 1934, pp. 178-80, note by Dr. J. Wilfrid Jackson. 



