Peat Moors Centre, Archaeological museum in Westhay, England
The Peat Moors Centre was a museum in the Somerset Levels dedicated to explaining how peat bogs form, how they were extracted, and their role in the local environment. It featured reconstructed Iron Age roundhouses from the Glastonbury Lake Village archaeological site and displayed tools and objects that revealed how ancient people lived in this wetland setting.
Archaeological finds showed that people had lived in this wetland for at least 2000 years, adapting to the challenging landscape. The museum itself opened in the 1970s to help visitors understand these ancient communities and their survival in such difficult terrain.
The center displayed traditional crafts tied to life in the wetlands, showing how people made textiles and wove baskets using materials from their surroundings. These skills reflect how communities adapted to living and working in the peatland environment.
The center was located on Shapwick Road and offered guided tours with hands-on demonstrations of peatland practices. Visitors could learn about the local ecosystem through interactive exhibits and outdoor areas that showed the landscape up close.
The center featured information about the Sweet Track, an ancient wooden walkway built across the marshes around 6000 years ago. This discovery stands as one of the world's oldest engineered pathways and demonstrates how early communities moved through waterlogged terrain.
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