Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Petrified Forest near Meols

They need that potion off Harry Potter Chamber Of Secrets to make it un pertrified.. (sorry for lame joke) (gets my coat) LOL


I heard Time Team where meant to investagate this ? I dont know how true this is as it was word of mouth and wasnt in the papers or anything...

Hmmm I never heard anything about that, but it would'nt surprise me.

My dad says he remembers these as a kid, but thinks most were covered by the concrete embankment.

never knew about this forest (were have i bin)

I'm sure in that link on here I gave about the history of the Hundred of Wirral it mentions a forest stretching a fair way up to at least Leasowe. I'll edit this and refer to it when I find it.

Never mind about editing, I was too late apparently but here's the quote about it:


"The horn of the Forester of Wirral, his warrant in 1283 for the allowance of venison to the workmen engaged in rebuilding Chester Cathedral, and his petition for remuneration when Wirral was disforested in 1362, are yet in existance; and though the Hundred now appears to be so denuded of wood, considerable fossil remains of a forest may be traced the entire length of the river Birken, from its source at Newton Car, to Wallasey Pool. Near Leasowe Castle they are found for upwards of a mile from East to West, on both sides of the Birken, and many oak trees of a large size have been dug out from the sands.* Similar remains are also visible at low water, of the highest spring tides, upon the Lancashire side of the Mersey. They are generally laying prostrate roots to which were once united. From the regularity of their position, it is evident they had been planted; and, not being found in the incumbent masses decayed forests usually exhibit, it would seem they were either cut down or destroyed by some sudden or violent catastrophe.**

These facts establish the existence of a forest upon the confines of the two counties, on a site, much of which is now covered by the estuary of the Mersey, which consequently could not then have occupied its current channel. Its entrance, most probably, was then a mere streamlet, meandering to the Dee, along the shore we now call Mockbeggar Wharf, and so insignificant as to account for its omission from the ancient maps. The present magnificent estuary is doubtless owing to some violent disruption of nature, in which the land yielded to the force of the waters."

*In these submarine forests have also been found fossil remains of the Hippopotamus of the South Seas, the Canadian, and the Irish Elk, with horns of Stags of all ages and sizes; and, also, those of the Bos-Taurus, -a native of the old British forests, now nearly extinct, although a species much degenerated in size yet remains in the parks of Chatelherault, and of Chillingham, and at Lyme in Cheshire. Some horns of the Cervus Elephas have been discovered in excavating the bed of Wallasey Pool, not in a fossil state, but retaining their animal matter; -the same convulsion which embedded the forest having, in all probability, entombed its antlered inhabitants.
In the prosecution of some surveys connected with the entrance into Liverpool, in 1828, a cemetary was found opposite the present lighthouse at Leasowe, about 150 yards below the flow of the tide; a similar burial place has also been discovered at Formby, on the Lancashire shoreline.

** The encroachment of the Mersey at remote periods are frequently referred to, though their immediate effects may not have been so visible. In 1294 the Cistercians of Stanlaw, "in consequence of irruptions of the river, which then rose three feet high in the offices of their monastery, threatening all with destruction," were obliged to move to Whalley.

Ive seen it a few years ago when i used to go digging for bait with my dad if you walk from the slip way at meols towards moreton about 800m and 300m before the concrete break water at dove point iam not sure if its covered over again I no the sandbank has shifted over the past few years years

i may take a walk later see if i can spot it