Chat Moss
Encyclopedia
Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog
that makes up 30 percent of the City of Salford
, in Greater Manchester
, England. It is north of the River Irwell
, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester
, and occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km²). The depth of peat varies between 24 feet (7 m) and 30 feet (9 m).
Chat Moss, as it might be recognised today, is thought to be about 7,000 years old, but peat development seems to have begun there with the ending of the last ice age
, about 10,000 years ago.
A great deal of work was carried out, particularly during the 19th century, to reclaim
large areas of Chat Moss. The bog threatened the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
, until George Stephenson
succeeded in constructing a railway line through it in 1829. The line "floated" on a wood and stone foundation. The M62 motorway
, completed in 1976, also crosses the moss, to the north of Irlam
. In 1958, the severed head of what is believed to be a Romano-British
Celt
, possibly a sacrificial victim, was discovered in the eastern part of the moss, near Worsley
.
Much of Chat Moss is now prime agricultural land, although farming in the area is in decline. A large-scale network of drainage channels is required to keep the land from reverting to bog. A 228 acres (92 ha) area of Chat Moss, notified as Astley and Bedford Mosses
, was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Along with nearby Risley Moss
and Holcroft Moss, Astley and Bedford Mosses has also been designated as a European Union
Special Area of Conservation
, known as Manchester Mosses.
, a 7th-century bishop of Mercia
, but as it was once part of a great tree-edged lake, as evidenced by the numerous wood remains in the lower levels of the peat, it is perhaps more likely that the name stems from the Celtic
word ced, meaning wood. Moss is the local name for a peat bog.
Daniel Defoe
visited the area in 1724, on his way from Warrington
to Manchester
:
Peat bogs sometimes burst their boundaries, particularly after being subjected to heavy rainfall, and this seems to have happened with Chat Moss in the 16th century. John Leland, writing during the reign of King Henry VIII
, described one such event:
Chat Moss presented a significant challenge to the engineers constructing the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
in 1826 because of the difficulty in providing a solid base for the track, in particular at a location known as Blackpool Hole. George Stephenson
was the engineer in charge of the project, and his initial idea was to dump enough spoil in the bog so that it would reach the bottom. This approach turned out to be impractical however, as the liquidity of the bog allowed the spoil to flow away from where the track was to be laid. The eventual solution, to build the line on a "floating" wood and stone foundation, was hailed as a "great triumph of engineering". The first train ran through Chat Moss in 1830, and the line is still in use today.
Chat Moss took place at the start of the 19th century. In 1793 William Roscoe
began work on reclaiming the smaller Trafford Moss, now part of Trafford Park
. By 1798 that work was sufficiently advanced for Roscoe to enter into a lease of part of Chat Moss from the de Trafford family, but no reclamation work was carried out until 1805.
Reclamation methods varied somewhat during the 19th century, but three basic operations featured; constructing drains at appropriate intervals; building a system of roads to allow access to the land so that materials such as clay
, lime
or marl
could be dumped on it, to give it body; and fertilising the land by adding manure, often in the form of the euphemistically named night soil
, collected from neighbouring towns.
The reclamation of Chat Moss and Trafford Moss was innovative in that instead of constructing roads to give access for the material to be dumped onto the bog, a movable light railway was developed. Narrow gauge track – which allowed the weight of the wagons to be spread evenly across an area of the bog – was temporarily laid down and then picked up and relaid elsewhere as needed. Roscoe was declared bankrupt in 1821, but the reclamation work continued under the stewardship of others who took over his leasehold interest, amongst them William Baines, the anti-Corn Law MP
and owner of the Leeds Mercury newspaper.
Between 1831 and 1851, the population of nearby Manchester increased by more than 150%. This put considerable pressure on refuse disposal, a problem exacerbated by the gradual switch from the 1870s onwards from the older cesspit methods of sewage disposal to pail closet
s, which required regular emptying. By the 1880s, Manchester was producing more than of refuse annually, about 75% of that being night soil. In 1895, Manchester Corporation
purchased 2502 acres (1,012.5 ha) of Chat Moss known as Chat Moss Estate from Sir Humphrey de Trafford
, with a view to using the moss as a refuse disposal site. The final price paid by the corporation was £137,531 7s
1d
(£ as of ).
Refuse was carried on barges down the Manchester Ship Canal as far as Boysnope Wharf, where it was loaded onto a light railway system to be taken into the moss for dumping. Farmers on Chat Moss were legally required by their tenancy agreements to accept a specified amount of refuse on their land, and were even obliged to pay for it. Farmers could themselves undertake reclamation work, with the land reclaimed being incorporated into their tenancies. An agreement dated 1905, between Manchester Corporation and Plant Cottage Farm, shows that the corporation agreed to of refuse per acre
free of charge for the first year, with the tenant being obliged to accept of refuse per acre each year thereafter. The dumping of night soil on Chat Moss ended in 1923, but general refuse continued to be dumped on a diminishing scale until it finally ended in 1966.
Once drained, stabilised, and fertilised, Chat Moss became prime agricultural land, supplying Manchester with salad and vegetables. The drainage channels, required today, give the area its distinctive flat landscape broken up by ditches instead of hedges or walls. Even after all of the reclamation work that has taken place, parts of the area remain remote and bleak.
A scheme was devised during the Second World War to protect major cities from enemy bombing by lighting decoy fires on nearby open land. Manchester was protected by four of these Starfish site
s as they were known, two of them on Chat Moss. RAF Balloon Command
was responsible for the administration and manning of the sites, which were fully operational by 23 January 1941. Each consisted of an air raid shelter for the crew along with various devices to simulate street lighting and the explosions of incendiary bombs. The effectiveness of the decoy sites is uncertain, and they were closed in 1943.
discovered a severed head and called the police.
It was initially believed that the head had been in the bog for less than a year, and so a search was carried out looking for more remains, but nothing was found. After X-rays and chemical tests, it was determined that the head had been in the bog for at least 100 years. An inquest was held into the man's death, at which the coroner returned an open verdict, and the head was put in the care of the Manchester Medical School.
The discovery of the nearby Lindow Man
in 1984 generated renewed interest in bog bodies
, and in 1987 what had become known as Worsley Man was re-examined. The inspection revealed a wound behind the right ear, fractures to the top of the skull, and a cut through the vertebra where he had been decapitated. The remains of a garotte were also found around his neck, all of which was suggestive of a ritual killing rather than an accidental death, perhaps related to the Celtic cult of the head. The condition of the tooth pulp suggested that Worsley Man was 20–30 years old at the time of his death, which radiocarbon dating
of a fragment of preserved soft tissue indicated was during the late Iron Age
, some time around 120 AD, identifying him as a Romano-British
Celt
. Worsley Man is now in the care of the Manchester Museum
.
overlaid with marl
s laid down during the Late Triassic
period. Those rocks are themselves overlaid by a layer of boulder clay
deposited during the last ice age
, about 10,000 years ago. The combination of the flat topography and the underlying clay resulted in extensive peat bogs developing along the Mersey
Valley, and overflowing beyond the valley. The bogs in the area between the River Glaze in the west, and Worsley
and Eccles
in the east, to the north of what was the River Irwell
– now the Manchester Ship Canal
– are known collectively as Chat Moss.
Chat Moss is a lowland raised bog. In areas where drainage is poor, water-logging can slow down plant decomposition, producing peat
, which over the years can raise the level of the bog above that of the surrounding land. The moss occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km²), and is about 5 miles (8 km) long, about 2.5 miles (4 km) across at its widest point, lying 75 feet (23 m) above sea level. Chat Moss lies mainly in Salford
, but extends into Wigan
. By the 1990s, an estimated 72% of the bog had been reclaimed, most of it for agriculture. About of degraded bog remain, with of undamaged peat deposits in four peat extraction sites. The peat varies in depth between 24 feet (7 m) and 30 feet (9 m).
The main bog mosses found in the peat of Chat Moss are Sphagnum cuspidatum, S. imbricatum, and S. acutifolia. The peat up to about 7 feet (2 m) from the surface is mainly humidified S. acutifolia, with fresher S. imbricatum peat nearer the surface.
A 228 acres (92.3 ha) area of Chat Moss, to the north of the Liverpool–Manchester railway line, notified as Astley & Bedford Mosses, was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Astley & Bedford Mosses, along with Risley Moss
and Holcroft Moss, is also a European Union
designated Special Area of Conservation
, known as Manchester Mosses.
The major habitats in the moss are bog, heathland, woodland and acidic grassland, subject to varying degrees of wetness depending on the local drainage. The remaining areas of bog are dominated by common cottongrass Eriophorum angustifolium and
hare's-tail cottongrass E. vaginatum. Bog mosses are more scarce, but Sphagnum cuspidatum, S. recurvum, S. tenellum, S. fimbriatum and S. subnitens occur in patches. As the peat has become drier, areas have been taken over by purple moor grass Molinia caerulea and by downy birch Betula pubescens. The moss also supports several bird species, and is particularly important for wintering raptor
s such as the hen harrier
Circus cyaneus cyaneus, the short-eared owl
Asio flammeus and the merlin
Falco columbarius, along with breeding species such as the curlew
Numenius arquata and the long-eared owl
Asio otus. There is a large heronry
in Botany Bay Wood, the largest area of woodland in Greater Manchester.
The domestic and industrial waste dumped on Chat Moss led to the presence of very high levels of heavy metals such as lead and copper in the soil, raising concerns that crops grown there may pose a health risk. However, the high-pH
of the peaty soil limits the mobility of the metals and so prevents them being taken up by crops.
Most of the area is now Green Belt
, placing restrictions on the kinds of developments that can take place. There are areas of commercial peat extraction, but Salford City Council is seeking to return at least some back to wet mossland. Planning permission for peat extraction expired at the end of 2010. At a meeting held on 30 June 2011 Salford Council decided not to renew the permission, and on 1 August obtained a court order prohibiting any further extraction pending an appeal by the peat extraction companies involved. A spokesman for the council stated that "Salford City Council is determined to use all its legal powers to preserve the environmentally important peat at Chat Moss".
, who was born in Salford, wrote a seven–minute tone poem for school orchestra, titled Chat Moss. Chat Moss was also the subject of a ceiling painting produced as the result of a research project at The University of Nottingham, exhibited in 2004. The project was a collaboration between artist Derek Hampson and geographer Gary Priestnall. Hampson chose the moss as their subject for two reasons: its 19th-century significance to the industrial revolution
, and "its present unpicturesque nature – its resistance to viewpoint, to being made pictorial." The artwork is painted on 108 two-foot (0.6 m) square tiles, and measures 18 feet (5.4 m) by 24 feet (7.2 m).
Bog
A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....
that makes up 30 percent of the City of Salford
City of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...
, in Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
, England. It is north of the River Irwell
River Irwell
The River Irwell is a long river which flows through the Irwell Valley in the counties of Lancashire and Greater Manchester in North West England. The river's source is at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately north of Bacup, in the parish of Cliviger, Lancashire...
, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, and occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km²). The depth of peat varies between 24 feet (7 m) and 30 feet (9 m).
Chat Moss, as it might be recognised today, is thought to be about 7,000 years old, but peat development seems to have begun there with the ending of the last ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
, about 10,000 years ago.
A great deal of work was carried out, particularly during the 19th century, to reclaim
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
large areas of Chat Moss. The bog threatened the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...
, until George Stephenson
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...
succeeded in constructing a railway line through it in 1829. The line "floated" on a wood and stone foundation. The M62 motorway
M62 motorway
The M62 motorway is a west–east trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting the cities of Liverpool and Hull via Manchester and Leeds. The road also forms part of the unsigned Euroroutes E20 and E22...
, completed in 1976, also crosses the moss, to the north of Irlam
Irlam
Irlam is a suburban town and unparished area within the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. At the 2001 census it had a population of 18,504. The town lies on flat ground on the south side of the M62 motorway and the north bank of the Manchester Ship Canal, and is west-southwest of...
. In 1958, the severed head of what is believed to be a Romano-British
Romano-British
Romano-British culture describes the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest of AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people of Celtic language and...
Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
, possibly a sacrificial victim, was discovered in the eastern part of the moss, near Worsley
Worsley
Worsley is a town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies along the course of Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. The M60 motorway bisects the area....
.
Much of Chat Moss is now prime agricultural land, although farming in the area is in decline. A large-scale network of drainage channels is required to keep the land from reverting to bog. A 228 acres (92 ha) area of Chat Moss, notified as Astley and Bedford Mosses
Astley and Bedford Mosses
Astley and Bedford Mosses are areas of peat bog south of the Bridgewater Canal and north of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in Astley and Bedford, Greater Manchester, England. They are among the last remaining fragments of Chat Moss, the raised bog that once covered a large area of south...
, was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Along with nearby Risley Moss
Risley Moss
Risley Moss is an area of peat bog situated near Birchwood in Warrington, England. It covers an area of and is one of the last remaining fragments of the raised bogs that once covered large areas of South Lancashire and North Cheshire...
and Holcroft Moss, Astley and Bedford Mosses has also been designated as a European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
Special Area of Conservation
Special Area of Conservation
A Special Area of Conservation is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive , also known as the Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora...
, known as Manchester Mosses.
History
Chat Moss may be named after St ChadChad of Mercia
Chad was a prominent 7th century Anglo-Saxon churchman, who became abbot of several monasteries, Bishop of the Northumbrians and subsequently Bishop of the Mercians and Lindsey People. He was later canonized as a saint. He was the brother of Cedd, also a saint...
, a 7th-century bishop of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
, but as it was once part of a great tree-edged lake, as evidenced by the numerous wood remains in the lower levels of the peat, it is perhaps more likely that the name stems from the Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
word ced, meaning wood. Moss is the local name for a peat bog.
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
visited the area in 1724, on his way from Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
:
Peat bogs sometimes burst their boundaries, particularly after being subjected to heavy rainfall, and this seems to have happened with Chat Moss in the 16th century. John Leland, writing during the reign of King Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, described one such event:
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...
in 1826 because of the difficulty in providing a solid base for the track, in particular at a location known as Blackpool Hole. George Stephenson
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...
was the engineer in charge of the project, and his initial idea was to dump enough spoil in the bog so that it would reach the bottom. This approach turned out to be impractical however, as the liquidity of the bog allowed the spoil to flow away from where the track was to be laid. The eventual solution, to build the line on a "floating" wood and stone foundation, was hailed as a "great triumph of engineering". The first train ran through Chat Moss in 1830, and the line is still in use today.
Reclamation
The first attempt at reclaimingLand reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
Chat Moss took place at the start of the 19th century. In 1793 William Roscoe
William Roscoe
William Roscoe , was an English historian and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born in Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach...
began work on reclaiming the smaller Trafford Moss, now part of Trafford Park
Trafford Park
Trafford Park is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. Located opposite Salford Quays, on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, it is west-southwest of Manchester city centre, and north of Stretford. Until the late 19th century it was the...
. By 1798 that work was sufficiently advanced for Roscoe to enter into a lease of part of Chat Moss from the de Trafford family, but no reclamation work was carried out until 1805.
Reclamation methods varied somewhat during the 19th century, but three basic operations featured; constructing drains at appropriate intervals; building a system of roads to allow access to the land so that materials such as clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
, lime
Lime (mineral)
Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
or marl
Marl
Marl or marlstone is a calcium carbonate or lime-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and aragonite. Marl was originally an old term loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay...
could be dumped on it, to give it body; and fertilising the land by adding manure, often in the form of the euphemistically named night soil
Night soil
Night soil is a euphemism for human excrement collected at night from cesspools, privies, etc. and sometimes used as a fertilizer. Night soil is produced as a result of a waste management system in areas without community infrastructure such as a sewage treatment facility, or individual septic...
, collected from neighbouring towns.
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
and owner of the Leeds Mercury newspaper.
Between 1831 and 1851, the population of nearby Manchester increased by more than 150%. This put considerable pressure on refuse disposal, a problem exacerbated by the gradual switch from the 1870s onwards from the older cesspit methods of sewage disposal to pail closet
Pail closet
A pail closet was a room used for the disposal of human excreta, under the pail system of waste removal. The closet was a small outdoor privy which contained a seat, underneath which a portable receptacle was placed. This pail, into which the user would defecate, was removed and emptied by the...
s, which required regular emptying. By the 1880s, Manchester was producing more than of refuse annually, about 75% of that being night soil. In 1895, Manchester Corporation
Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council is the local government authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. It is composed of 96 councillors, three for each of the 32 electoral wards of Manchester. Currently the council is controlled by the Labour Party and is led by...
purchased 2502 acres (1,012.5 ha) of Chat Moss known as Chat Moss Estate from Sir Humphrey de Trafford
Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 3rd Baronet
Sir Humphrey Francis de Trafford was an English landowner and racehorse breeder. He was the son of Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 2nd Baronet and Lady Annette Mary Talbot....
, with a view to using the moss as a refuse disposal site. The final price paid by the corporation was £137,531 7s
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
1d
Penny (British pre-decimal coin)
The penny of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, was in circulation from the early 18th century until February 1971, Decimal Day....
(£ as of ).
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
free of charge for the first year, with the tenant being obliged to accept of refuse per acre each year thereafter. The dumping of night soil on Chat Moss ended in 1923, but general refuse continued to be dumped on a diminishing scale until it finally ended in 1966.
Once drained, stabilised, and fertilised, Chat Moss became prime agricultural land, supplying Manchester with salad and vegetables. The drainage channels, required today, give the area its distinctive flat landscape broken up by ditches instead of hedges or walls. Even after all of the reclamation work that has taken place, parts of the area remain remote and bleak.
A scheme was devised during the Second World War to protect major cities from enemy bombing by lighting decoy fires on nearby open land. Manchester was protected by four of these Starfish site
Starfish site
Starfish sites, or bombing decoy sites, were deliberately created simulations of burning towns that were constructed in Britain during World War II. The name came from the code name for one of the sites, "Starfish", itself from the original code, SF, for Special Fire.Starfish sites were used to...
s as they were known, two of them on Chat Moss. RAF Balloon Command
RAF Balloon Command
Balloon Command was the Royal Air Force command which was responsible for controlling all the United Kingdom-based barrage balloon units during World War II.- History :...
was responsible for the administration and manning of the sites, which were fully operational by 23 January 1941. Each consisted of an air raid shelter for the crew along with various devices to simulate street lighting and the explosions of incendiary bombs. The effectiveness of the decoy sites is uncertain, and they were closed in 1943.
Worsley Man
In August 1958, workmen digging peat in an area of Chat Moss near WorsleyWorsley
Worsley is a town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies along the course of Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. The M60 motorway bisects the area....
discovered a severed head and called the police.
It was initially believed that the head had been in the bog for less than a year, and so a search was carried out looking for more remains, but nothing was found. After X-rays and chemical tests, it was determined that the head had been in the bog for at least 100 years. An inquest was held into the man's death, at which the coroner returned an open verdict, and the head was put in the care of the Manchester Medical School.
The discovery of the nearby Lindow Man
Lindow man
Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The body was found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat-cutters...
in 1984 generated renewed interest in bog bodies
Bog body
Bog bodies, which are also known as bog people, are the naturally preserved human corpses found in the sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained their skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of the surrounding area...
, and in 1987 what had become known as Worsley Man was re-examined. The inspection revealed a wound behind the right ear, fractures to the top of the skull, and a cut through the vertebra where he had been decapitated. The remains of a garotte were also found around his neck, all of which was suggestive of a ritual killing rather than an accidental death, perhaps related to the Celtic cult of the head. The condition of the tooth pulp suggested that Worsley Man was 20–30 years old at the time of his death, which radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
of a fragment of preserved soft tissue indicated was during the late Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
, some time around 120 AD, identifying him as a Romano-British
Romano-British
Romano-British culture describes the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest of AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people of Celtic language and...
Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
. Worsley Man is now in the care of the Manchester Museum
Manchester Museum
The Manchester Museum is owned by the University of Manchester. Sited on Oxford Road at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about six million items from every continent and serves both as a resource for academic research and teaching and as a regional...
.
Geography and ecology
At 53°27′46"N 2°25′54"W (53.4629, -2.4316), Chat Moss lies at the southern edge of the Lancashire Plain, an area of Bunter sandstonesBunter (geology)
Bunter beds are sandstone deposits containing rounded pebbles, such as can notably be found in Warwickshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Devon and Dorset in England...
overlaid with marl
Marl
Marl or marlstone is a calcium carbonate or lime-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and aragonite. Marl was originally an old term loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay...
s laid down during the Late Triassic
Late Triassic
The Late Triassic is in the geologic timescale the third and final of three epochs of the Triassic period. The corresponding series is known as the Upper Triassic. In the past it was sometimes called the Keuper, after a German lithostratigraphic group that has a roughly corresponding age...
period. Those rocks are themselves overlaid by a layer of boulder clay
Boulder clay
Boulder clay, in geology, is a deposit of clay, often full of boulders, which is formed in and beneath glaciers and ice-sheets wherever they are found, but is in a special sense the typical deposit of the Glacial Period in northern Europe and North America...
deposited during the last ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
, about 10,000 years ago. The combination of the flat topography and the underlying clay resulted in extensive peat bogs developing along the Mersey
River Mersey
The River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is around long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire....
Valley, and overflowing beyond the valley. The bogs in the area between the River Glaze in the west, and Worsley
Worsley
Worsley is a town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies along the course of Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. The M60 motorway bisects the area....
and Eccles
Eccles, Greater Manchester
Eccles is a town in the City of Salford, a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England, west of Salford and west of Manchester city centre...
in the east, to the north of what was the River Irwell
River Irwell
The River Irwell is a long river which flows through the Irwell Valley in the counties of Lancashire and Greater Manchester in North West England. The river's source is at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately north of Bacup, in the parish of Cliviger, Lancashire...
– now the Manchester Ship Canal
Manchester Ship Canal
The Manchester Ship Canal is a river navigation 36 miles long in the North West of England. Starting at the Mersey Estuary near Liverpool, it generally follows the original routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell through the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. Several sets of locks lift...
– are known collectively as Chat Moss.
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
, which over the years can raise the level of the bog above that of the surrounding land. The moss occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km²), and is about 5 miles (8 km) long, about 2.5 miles (4 km) across at its widest point, lying 75 feet (23 m) above sea level. Chat Moss lies mainly in Salford
City of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...
, but extends into Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
. By the 1990s, an estimated 72% of the bog had been reclaimed, most of it for agriculture. About of degraded bog remain, with of undamaged peat deposits in four peat extraction sites. The peat varies in depth between 24 feet (7 m) and 30 feet (9 m).
The main bog mosses found in the peat of Chat Moss are Sphagnum cuspidatum, S. imbricatum, and S. acutifolia. The peat up to about 7 feet (2 m) from the surface is mainly humidified S. acutifolia, with fresher S. imbricatum peat nearer the surface.
A 228 acres (92.3 ha) area of Chat Moss, to the north of the Liverpool–Manchester railway line, notified as Astley & Bedford Mosses, was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Astley & Bedford Mosses, along with Risley Moss
Risley Moss
Risley Moss is an area of peat bog situated near Birchwood in Warrington, England. It covers an area of and is one of the last remaining fragments of the raised bogs that once covered large areas of South Lancashire and North Cheshire...
and Holcroft Moss, is also a European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
designated Special Area of Conservation
Special Area of Conservation
A Special Area of Conservation is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive , also known as the Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora...
, known as Manchester Mosses.
The major habitats in the moss are bog, heathland, woodland and acidic grassland, subject to varying degrees of wetness depending on the local drainage. The remaining areas of bog are dominated by common cottongrass Eriophorum angustifolium and
hare's-tail cottongrass E. vaginatum. Bog mosses are more scarce, but Sphagnum cuspidatum, S. recurvum, S. tenellum, S. fimbriatum and S. subnitens occur in patches. As the peat has become drier, areas have been taken over by purple moor grass Molinia caerulea and by downy birch Betula pubescens. The moss also supports several bird species, and is particularly important for wintering raptor
Bird of prey
Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
s such as the hen harrier
Hen Harrier
The Hen Harrier or Northern Harrier is a bird of prey. It breeds throughout the northern parts of the northern hemisphere in Canada and the northernmost USA, and in northern Eurasia. This species is polytypic, with two subspecies. Marsh Hawk is a historical name for the American form.It migrates...
Circus cyaneus cyaneus, the short-eared owl
Short-eared Owl
The Short-eared Owl is a species of typical owl . In Scotland this species of owl is often referred to as a cataface, grass owl or short-horned hootlet. Owls belonging to genus Asio are known as the eared owls, as they have tufts of feathers resembling mammalian ears. These "ear" tufts may or may...
Asio flammeus and the merlin
Merlin (bird)
The Merlin is a small species of falcon from the Northern Hemisphere. A bird of prey once known colloquially as a pigeon hawk in North America, the Merlin breeds in the northern Holarctic; some migrate to subtropical and northern tropical regions in winter.-European and North American...
Falco columbarius, along with breeding species such as the curlew
Eurasian Curlew
The Eurasian Curlew, Numenius arquata, is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia...
Numenius arquata and the long-eared owl
Long-eared Owl
The Long-eared Owl - Asio otus is a species of owl which breeds in Europe, Asia, and North America. This species is a part of the larger grouping of owls known as typical owls, family Strigidae, which contains most species of owl...
Asio otus. There is a large heronry
Heronry
A heronry is a breeding ground for herons, sometimes called a heron rookery.- Asia :* Kaggaladu Heronry is in Karnataka state of India...
in Botany Bay Wood, the largest area of woodland in Greater Manchester.
The domestic and industrial waste dumped on Chat Moss led to the presence of very high levels of heavy metals such as lead and copper in the soil, raising concerns that crops grown there may pose a health risk. However, the high-pH
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
of the peaty soil limits the mobility of the metals and so prevents them being taken up by crops.
Economy
Chat Moss makes up the largest area of prime farmland in Greater Manchester, but farming on the moss is in decline. In 2003, it was reported that of the 54 farms on the moss, occupying 3000 acres (1,214 ha), almost half the area of the bog, only three were growing vegetables. Others had turned to arable farming, turf growing or horse livery instead of salad and vegetable crops. Chat Moss also contains the largest block of semi-natural woodland in Greater Manchester.Most of the area is now Green Belt
Green belt
A green belt or greenbelt is a policy and land use designation used in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges which have a linear character and may run through an...
, placing restrictions on the kinds of developments that can take place. There are areas of commercial peat extraction, but Salford City Council is seeking to return at least some back to wet mossland. Planning permission for peat extraction expired at the end of 2010. At a meeting held on 30 June 2011 Salford Council decided not to renew the permission, and on 1 August obtained a court order prohibiting any further extraction pending an appeal by the peat extraction companies involved. A spokesman for the council stated that "Salford City Council is determined to use all its legal powers to preserve the environmentally important peat at Chat Moss".
Cultural references
In 1994, the British composer Peter Maxwell DaviesPeter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
, who was born in Salford, wrote a seven–minute tone poem for school orchestra, titled Chat Moss. Chat Moss was also the subject of a ceiling painting produced as the result of a research project at The University of Nottingham, exhibited in 2004. The project was a collaboration between artist Derek Hampson and geographer Gary Priestnall. Hampson chose the moss as their subject for two reasons: its 19th-century significance to the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, and "its present unpicturesque nature – its resistance to viewpoint, to being made pictorial." The artwork is painted on 108 two-foot (0.6 m) square tiles, and measures 18 feet (5.4 m) by 24 feet (7.2 m).