|
| Mark Olly is a Cheshire writer and archaeologist
who runs the Celtic Warrington Project Archaeological Unit. You can
read about Mark's work in the 'Celtic Warrington & Other Mysteries'
volumes. |
|  |
| The River Mersey and
the Estuary Belisama |
| by |
Mark Olly
|
| The source of the Mersey
|
There is far more to the basic river Mersey than meets the eye. At
source the river is fed by three smaller rivers; the Tame with its
origins at Saddleworth in Yorkshire, the Etherow from Featherbed Moss
beyond Ashton-under-Lyme, and the Goyt flowing from Goyt Moss and
Axe Edge near Buxton in Derbyshire. It is true to say that the river
Goyt is the most significant and direct river passage with the Etherow
joining it first between Marple and Stockport and the Tame at Stockport.
It then becomes the river Mersey. Its waters pass through the towns
and villages of Whaley Bridge, New Mills, Marple, Stockport, Didsbury,
Stretford, Urmston, Flixton, Cadishead, Hollins Green, Warburton,
Rixton, Woolston, Warrington, Great Sankey, Moore, Norton, Widnes
and Runcorn before heading out into the Irish Sea through the estuary
past Ellesmere Port, Liverpool and Birkenhead. This may not always
have been the case in ancient times.
|
photo:
View of rock shelter at Axe Edge
|
| Ptolemy's Mapping |
In the 1947 book 'Companion Into Cheshire' produced by J.H. Ingram
he makes the little known and slightly improbable observation that:
"An intriguing theory advocated by the late William Ashton of Stockport
suggests that originally the Mersey entered the Irish Sea by way of
the estuary of the Dee, and that what is now the Mersey estuary was
in earlier times, a low boggy isthmus linking Lancashire with Wirral.
The Shropshire Union Canal follows the line of the vanished channel
of the Mersey and the old bed of the river is said to lie at no great
depth beneath the present surface. Ptolemy's map of the second century
(Author's note: This should read "mapping" as Ptolemy did not produce
a 'map') does not show the Mersey estuary, and an old couplet declares
that:" "The squirrels ran from tree to tree, From Formby Point to
Hilbree." "A great cataclysm in the sixth century is believed to have
resulted in the sea breaking through the isthmus where Liverpool and
Wallasey now stand, thus diverting the Mersey into its present channel.
|
| Estuary Belisama |
This disaster is referred to in a poem attributed to the bard Taliesin
(520-570 AD) which is corroborated by the record of a great earthquake
on September 6th 543 AD, included in the British Association list
of earthquakes." It is worth noting here that Ptolemy only recorded
a travel journal of names and locations in 140 AD which were used
to produce "Ptolemy's Map" of Britain which appeared for the first
time in print in Ptolemy's 'Geographia' in Bologne in 1477 AD over
a thousand years after his survey. However, Ptolemy recording the
Roman name of the Mersey estuary as the 'ESTUARY BELISAMA' is the
most important clue to the origins of the river's identity as it is
a Romanised version of a known Celtic river name best fitting the
Mersey (for many reasons which are to follow). |
|
|
Archaeology
On
a visit to Axe Edge I noted the existence of a small rock shelter
next to which my attention was drawn to a large horizontal boulder.
From close range nothing was greatly discernible but I photographed
it and the greatly reduced size print clearly shows either a monumental
horse head in full flight or that of a bristling wild boar. It is
highly similar in style to an engraving of a horse head on a rib bone
from Robin Hood's cave at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, and the French
Stone Age cave paintings of horses. It points directly towards Wildboarclough
! The Romans constructed roads along the river, the Celts created
a sacred route of pilgrimage and marked it out using mounds and cats
as the key. This pattern was continued by Medieval builders and story
tellers who used it as the path taken by Sir Gawain in 'Gawain And
The Green Knight' on his quest to save the 'fertility of the land'.
This story leads us to Staffordshire and Ludchurch, the 'Green Chapel'
- but more of this in the next article.