Agricultural History Review, Volume 68 Part 2 (2020), pp. 141–167

In parts of lowland Lancashire almost every field had its marl-pit. Most of these were dug during the eighteenth century, but the history of the use of marl goes back to antiquity. It would appear that, prior to the eighteenth century, marl was mainly dug on the waste, and carted to where it was to be used, primarily to bring new land into cultivation from the mosses, lowland moors and heaths. Later, post-enclosure, and as the cost of carriage became the determining factor, it became the norm instead to dig for marl in the fields in which it was to be spread; although ‘industrial-scale’ marl extraction continued on the wastes, sometimes using railways to bring it to where it was required. Early in the nineteenth century marl began to be replaced by lime and imported mineral fertilizers: but the legacy of marling remains in the large numbers of flooded pits which continue to be such a striking feature of the Lancashire landscape. 

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