Kersal Moor
Encyclopedia
Kersal Moor is a recreation area in Kersal
, within the City of Salford
, in Greater Manchester
, England, consisting of eight hectares of moorland
, bounded by Moor Lane, Heathlands Road, St. Paul's Churchyard and Singleton Brook.
Managed by Salford City Council's Ranger Team, the moor has for some years been designated a Site of Biological Importance
, which is the designation given to the most important non-statutory sites for nature conservation in Greater Manchester. In 2007 it was designated as a Local Nature Reserve
by English Nature
. The ranger team takes advice from a local user group, the "Friends of Kersal Moor", who help with the management of the moor and organise events and activities such as such as litter collections, tree thinning, bench building, teddy bears' picnics and celebration days.
For such a small area of land, Kersal Moor, originally called Karsey or Carsall Moor, has a rich history, due, in part, to it originally covering a much larger area. The map of 1848 shows the moor extending across the land now occupied by Salford City F.C.
's ground and down to the River Irwell
. Evidence of activity during the Neolithic
period has been discovered, and the area was used by the Romans
. It was the site of the first Manchester Racecourse and only the second golf course to be built outside Scotland. It has been extensively used for other sporting pursuits, military manoeuvres and public gatherings such as the Great Chartist
Meeting of 1838, prompting the political theorist Freidrich Engels to dub it "the Mons Sacre of Manchester".
With the increasing industrialisation and urbanisation of Manchester
and Salford during the 18th and 19th centuries, the moor became one of the remaining areas of natural landscape of interest to amateur naturalists
, one of whom collected the only known specimens of the moth species, Euclemensia woodiella
, which is now extinct.
The moor has been referenced in a number of books and poems and is today preserved as a recreation area, a site of historical importance, and one of the last areas of open moorland in Salford.
Kersal Moor is one of the many fluvioglacial
ridges that formed along the Irwell Valley
during the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age
. Typically for this type of landform
, the subsoil is composed of sand
mixed with coarse gravel
. The 19th century botanist, Richard Buxton, described this as "Mr. E.W. Binney's drift deposit no.2 ... a deposit of sharp forest sand, parted with layers of gravel composed of Azoic, Palaeozoic, and Triassic
rocks, well rounded, parted with layers of fine sand, and having every appearance of a regular deposit by water." This deposit is overlaid with a thin topsoil
supporting a range of mosses, heathers
, grasses, fern
s, common broom, gorse
and some trees, which are predominately oak
with some rowan
, cherry
and other broadleaved species. The land to the south is elevated, rising to a high point towards the south west. From this elevated position there are views across Manchester
to the Derbyshire
hills in the south, to the Pennines
in the north east and across the Irwell Valley
and Salford in the west. The land falls away to the north, ending with two, drumlin
shaped hills on the northern edge, which were probably formed by sediment
from the meltwater
of the receding glaciers, in a process known as sedimentary fluting
. The moor is criss-crossed with footpaths, many of which cut through to the sand and gravel below. Singleton Brook, to the north of the moor, denotes the boundary between Salford and Prestwich
.
scrapers
, knives and other materials associated with neolithic
man were discovered on the moor in the late 19th and early 20th century by local antiquarians such as Charles Roeder. The Roman road
from Manchester
(Mamucium) to Ribchester
(Bremetennacum
) roughly followed the line of the A56 road
(Bury new Road) which is just to the east of Kersal Moor. There was a Roman camp at Rainsough just to the west, and some have speculated that there may have been a second camp to the east, in the area known as Castle Hill, making a defensive line across the moor to protect the north of Mamucium.
The 18th century historian John Whitaker
said of the moor:
However, the last of these trees were burnt around 1880.
of 2–5 May 1687:
The racecourse is shown on the map of 1848 as a roughly oval-shaped course extending around the west, north and east of the moor, crossing Moor Lane and carrying on around the ground that is now the home of Salford City F.C.
, roughly following the line of what is now Nevile Road. John Byrom
(1692–1763), the owner of Kersal Cell, was greatly opposed to the racing and wrote a pamphlet against it, but the racing continued for fifteen years when, probably through Dr Byrom's influence, they were stopped in 1746, the year of the Jacobite rising
. The races recommenced in 1759 and were then held every year until 1846, when they were transferred to the New Barns racecourse. Racing carried on there until the new Castle Irwell
Racecourse was built,just across the river from the moor, in Lower Broughton
in 1847.
During the 18th century the moor was also used for nude male races, allowing females to study the form before choosing their mates. Indeed in 1796 Roger Aytoun, known as "Spanking Roger" (who was later a hero of the siege of Gibraltar) acquired Hough Hall in Moston
through marriage to the widowed Barbara Minshull, after such a race.
The moor has also been used for a number of other sporting activities. In the 18th and early 19th century archery
was still practised as a village sport, and the archers of Broughton
, Cheetham and Prestwich
were renowned countrywide. The Broughton archers
practised their sport on Kersal Moor and in 1793 the Manchester writer, James Ogden, composed a poem in praise of them, which begins:
and ends with:
By 1830 however, archery had become the sport of gentlemen and an exclusive club called "The Broughton Archers" was formed, the membership of which included some of the most influential men in the town. They originally met at a public house
nicknamed "Hard backed Nan's" on the site of Bishopscourt where the Bishop of Manchester
now resides, but after Bury New Road was built and the site became too public, they moved to the Turf Tavern on Kersal Moor.
In 1818 a golf course
was founded on the moor for the Manchester Golf Club, a group of Manchester businessmen, some of whom had emigrated from Scotland. This was only the second course to be built outside Scotland. The course at that time consisted of only five holes and had no fairways or greens as the players had to share the ground with other users. The club was very exclusive and by 1825 a club house had been built on Singleton Road. By 1869 the course had increased to nine holes and the club continued playing on the moor until 1862 when a new course was built a few hundred yards away at Kersal Vale.
, Friedrich Engels
referred to it as the Mons Sacer of Manchester. This was a reference to the hill to which the plebs
(common citizens) of Rome
withdrew en masse in 494 BC as an act of civil protest.
In 1789 and 1790 there had been a spate of highway and house robberies. Gangs of armed men had entered houses in the middle of the night and taken away all they could carry. Armed patrols were placed around the neighbourhood to little effect until, at last, a man named James Macnamara was arrested with three others for burglary at the Dog and Partridge Inn on Stretford Road. Macnamara was tried at Lancaster Assizes
and sentenced to be hanged on Kersal moor as a warning to other criminals. A large number of people came to watch the. execution but, as Joseph Aston said in his Metrical Records of Manchester "no one could suppose that the example had any use ... as several persons had their pockets picked within sight of the gallows and the following night a house was broken into and robbed in Manchester".
The Stockport
, Bolton
, and Rochdale
Volunteers were reviewed on Kersal Moor on 25 August 1797 and in June 1812, 30,000 troops from the Wiltshire Regiment
, Buckinghamshire
, Louth
and Stirling regiments were camped there ready for action to suppress the Luddites. In 1818 a protest meeting was held on the moor by coal miners to publicise their case for better pay, because of the dangers they faced at work.
A duel was fought on the moor in July 1804 between Mr. Jones and Mr. Shakspere Philips. Mr. Jones fired at Mr. Philips without effect and Mr. Philips then fired his pistol in the air, upon which the seconds interfered, the two man shook hands, and honour was satisfied. Two weeks later, two other men who had been quarrelling in the newspapers, met on the moor to gain satisfaction. However, the magistrates had been informed and the men were arrested before the duel could take place.
On 12 April 1831 the 60th Rifle Corps
had carried out an exercise
on the Moor under the command of Lieutenant P.S. Fitzgerald, and a detachment of seventy four men were returning to their barracks in Salford by way of Lower Broughton
and Pendleton
. As the men were crossing the Broughton Suspension Bridge
, built four years earlier by Fitzgeralds's father, they felt it begin to vibrate in time with their footsteps, and before they had reached the other side the bridge collapsed. Although no one was killed twenty men were injured, six of them seriously. It was this incident that caused the British Military to issue the order for soldiers to "break step" when crossing a bridge.
The largest of a series of Chartist
meetings was held on the moor on 24 September 1838. The meeting, which was planned as a show of strength and to elect delegates for the Chartist national convention, attracted speakers from all over the country and a massive crowd, which was estimated at 30,000 by the Manchester Guardian and 300,000 by the Morning Advertiser.
The Chartists were active for the next eight months, but the poor attendance at a second meeting held on the moor at the same time as a racing fixture on 25 May 1839, signalled the end of the movement and, although the movement was not successful initially, most of the Chartists' demands were eventually met by Parliament
.
In 1848, the moor was used as an encampment for the East Norfolk Regiment as part of an increased military presence in Lancashire
brought about by the unrest caused by Chartist agitation.
As a relatively rural environment in an increasingly urbanised area, Kersal moor was also used for more peaceful pursuits. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century it was much frequented by amateur naturalists and botanists. One of the botanists was Richard Buxton who went on to write A Botanical Guide to Manchester. In 1829 an amateur insect collector named Robert Cribb, collected a series of about fifty small yellow and brown moth
s from a rotting alder
on the moor. These turned out to be a previously unknown species of moth, but they were mistakenly attributed to a friend of Cribb's, the collector R. Wood, who had asked an expert to identify them. The moths were classified as Pancalia woodiella (today Euclemensia woodiella
) in Wood's honour.
Enraged by this, and by accusations of fraudulently passing off foreign moths as British, Cribb gave up collecting and left the rest of the specimens with his landlady as security for a debt. Here the stories from Manchester University and The Australian Museum, Victoria, differ as to whether it was Cribb's pub landlady or the landlady of his lodgings, but either way the result was the same. The debt was not paid on time and when Cribb went back for the moths, which he had already sold to another collector, his landlady had burnt them. Subsequent efforts by other collectors to find more of the moths were unsuccessful, and the three specimens left in existence are thought to be the only representatives of an extinct species.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a Mr. Cosmo Melvill contributed an article to the Journal of Botany in which he gave a list of more than 240 plants and flowers, not including mosses, that he had found on the moor.
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Shortly after 6pm on 10 September 1848 the 'celebrated aeronaut Lieutenant Gale' ascended in a hot air Balloon from Pomona Gardens in Hulme
. After discharging a number of fireworks form a height of over 1000 feet, Lieutenant Gale drifted in various directions and made abortive attempts to land in a number of locations. Eventually, at about 10pm, the ballon descended safely in the farm yard of Mr Josiah Taylor on Kersal Moor.
In 1852, Queen Victoria commissioned a painting by the artist William Wyld
which became A view of Manchester from Kersal Moor (pictured). The painting, which depicts the moor as a beautiful pastoral scene overlooking Castle Irwell Racecourse and the industrial landscape of Manchester, is now in the Royal Collection
where it is listed as Manchester from Higher Broughton. A steel line engraving of the painting by the engraver Edward Goodall was also commissioned.
mentions Kersal Moor in his book Passages in the Life of a Radical (1840–1844) when he advises one of his friends to make his way from Middleton
to Bolton
via Kersal Moor to avoid the authorities:
The races on the moor were mentioned in the nineteenth century novel The Manchester Man by Mrs. G Linnaeus Banks
(1874). The hero of the story, Jabez Clegg, meets a street boy named Kit Townley, of whom Mrs. Banks says:
It is also mentioned in a collection of poems by Philip Connell called "Poaching on Parnassus" published in 1865.
Lines to Mr. Isaac Holden
by Philip Connell
on his Drawing of the Prestwich Lunatic Asylum:
In 1876 the Lancashire dialect
poet and songwriter Edwin Waugh
moved from his Manchester home to Kersal Moor for the "fresher air". Waugh's early life was spent in Rochdale
and although he worked in Manchester he yearned for the moors he remembered from his youth. He wrote the following poem about Kersal Moor
As his health declined, Waugh moved to the seaside town of New Brighton
. On his death in 1890, his body was brought back to be buried in the graveyard of St. Paul's Church, on the edge of the moorland he loved so well.
Kersal
Kersal is an inner city area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. The centre of Kersal is northwest of Manchester city centre, and north-northwest of Salford's conventional centre at Greengate....
, within 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, consisting of eight hectares of moorland
Moorland
Moorland or moor is a type of habitat, in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, found in upland areas, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils and heavy fog...
, bounded by Moor Lane, Heathlands Road, St. Paul's Churchyard and Singleton Brook.
Managed by Salford City Council's Ranger Team, the moor has for some years been designated a Site of Biological Importance
Site of Biological Importance
A Site of Biological Importance is one of the non-statutory designations used locally by the Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Staffordshire County Councils in England to protect locally valued sites of biological diversity which are described generally as Local Wildlife Sites by the UK Government...
, which is the designation given to the most important non-statutory sites for nature conservation in Greater Manchester. In 2007 it was designated as a Local Nature Reserve
Local Nature Reserve
Local nature reserve or LNR is a designation for nature reserves in the United Kingdom. The designation has its origin in the recommendations of the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee which established the framework for nature conservation in the United Kingdom and suggested a national suite...
by English Nature
English Nature
English Nature was the United Kingdom government agency that promoted the conservation of wildlife, geology and wild places throughout England between 1990 and 2006...
. The ranger team takes advice from a local user group, the "Friends of Kersal Moor", who help with the management of the moor and organise events and activities such as such as litter collections, tree thinning, bench building, teddy bears' picnics and celebration days.
For such a small area of land, Kersal Moor, originally called Karsey or Carsall Moor, has a rich history, due, in part, to it originally covering a much larger area. The map of 1848 shows the moor extending across the land now occupied by Salford City F.C.
Salford City F.C.
Salford City F.C. are a semi-professional football club based in the Kersal area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. They are the only semi-professional side in the City of Salford, with Manchester United the closest league club. Salford City currently play in the Northern Premier League...
's ground and down to 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...
. Evidence of activity during the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
period has been discovered, and the area was used by the Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. It was the site of the first Manchester Racecourse and only the second golf course to be built outside Scotland. It has been extensively used for other sporting pursuits, military manoeuvres and public gatherings such as the Great Chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
Meeting of 1838, prompting the political theorist Freidrich Engels to dub it "the Mons Sacre of Manchester".
With the increasing industrialisation and urbanisation 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 Salford during the 18th and 19th centuries, the moor became one of the remaining areas of natural landscape of interest to amateur naturalists
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
, one of whom collected the only known specimens of the moth species, Euclemensia woodiella
Euclemensia woodiella
Euclemensia woodiella, the Manchester Tinea , is a yellow and brown British moth known by only three of examples, one of which is held by Manchester Museum, one by the Natural History Museum, London, and the type, which is in the Curtis Collection at Museum Victoria.At first placed in Pancalia or...
, which is now extinct.
The moor has been referenced in a number of books and poems and is today preserved as a recreation area, a site of historical importance, and one of the last areas of open moorland in Salford.
Geography
Fluvioglacial landform
Fluvioglacial landforms are landforms molded by glacial meltwater. This discharge of glacial streams, both over the surface and beneath the ice sheet , is higher in the warmer summer months. As subglacial water often flows under pressure, it has a high velocity and is very turbulent...
ridges that formed along the Irwell Valley
Irwell Valley
The Irwell Valley extends from the Forest of Rossendale in North West England, through to the cities of Salford and Manchester. The River Irwell runs through the valley, along with the River Croal.-Geology:...
during the melting of the glaciers at the end 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...
. Typically for this type of landform
Landform
A landform or physical feature in the earth sciences and geology sub-fields, comprises a geomorphological unit, and is largely defined by its surface form and location in the landscape, as part of the terrain, and as such, is typically an element of topography...
, the subsoil is composed of sand
Sand
Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...
mixed with coarse gravel
Gravel
Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...
. The 19th century botanist, Richard Buxton, described this as "Mr. E.W. Binney's drift deposit no.2 ... a deposit of sharp forest sand, parted with layers of gravel composed of Azoic, Palaeozoic, and Triassic
Triassic
The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...
rocks, well rounded, parted with layers of fine sand, and having every appearance of a regular deposit by water." This deposit is overlaid with a thin topsoil
Topsoil
Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top to . It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth's biological soil activity occurs.-Importance:...
supporting a range of mosses, heathers
Heathers
Heathers is a 1989 black comedy film starring Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty. The film portrays four girls in a trend-setting clique at a fictional Ohio high school...
, grasses, fern
Fern
A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...
s, common broom, gorse
Gorse
Gorse, furze, furse or whin is a genus of about 20 plant species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia.Gorse is closely related to the brooms, and like them, has green...
and some trees, which are predominately oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
with some rowan
Rowan
The rowans or mountain-ashes are shrubs or small trees in genus Sorbus of family Rosaceae. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the mountains of western China and the Himalaya, where numerous apomictic microspecies...
, cherry
Cherry
The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....
and other broadleaved species. The land to the south is elevated, rising to a high point towards the south west. From this elevated position there are views across 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...
to the Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
hills in the south, to the Pennines
Pennines
The Pennines are a low-rising mountain range, separating the North West of England from Yorkshire and the North East.Often described as the "backbone of England", they form a more-or-less continuous range stretching from the Peak District in Derbyshire, around the northern and eastern edges of...
in the north east and across the Irwell Valley
Irwell Valley
The Irwell Valley extends from the Forest of Rossendale in North West England, through to the cities of Salford and Manchester. The River Irwell runs through the valley, along with the River Croal.-Geology:...
and Salford in the west. The land falls away to the north, ending with two, drumlin
Drumlin
A drumlin, from the Irish word droimnín , first recorded in 1833, is an elongated whale-shaped hill formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated till or ground moraine.-Drumlin formation:...
shaped hills on the northern edge, which were probably formed by sediment
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
from the meltwater
Meltwater
Meltwater is the water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice and ice shelfs over oceans. Meltwater is often found in the ablation zone of glaciers, where the rate of snow cover is reducing...
of the receding glaciers, in a process known as sedimentary fluting
Fluting (geology)
Fluting is a process of differential weathering and erosion by which an exposed well-jointed coarse-grained rock such as granite or gneiss, develops a corrugated surface of flutes; especially the formation of small-scale ridges and depressions by wave action....
. The moor is criss-crossed with footpaths, many of which cut through to the sand and gravel below. Singleton Brook, to the north of the moor, denotes the boundary between Salford and Prestwich
Prestwich
Prestwich is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies close to the River Irwell, north of Manchester city centre, north of Salford and south of Bury....
.
History
FlintFlint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
scrapers
Scraper (archaeology)
In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. Whereas this term is often used for any unifacially flaked stone tool that defies classification, most lithic analysts maintain that the only true scrapers are defined on the base of...
, knives and other materials associated with neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
man were discovered on the moor in the late 19th and early 20th century by local antiquarians such as Charles Roeder. The Roman road
Roman road
The Roman roads were a vital part of the development of the Roman state, from about 500 BC through the expansion during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate. The Roman road system spanned more than 400,000 km...
from 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...
(Mamucium) to Ribchester
Ribchester
Ribchester is a village and civil parish within the Ribble Valley district of Lancashire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Ribble, northwest of Blackburn and east of Preston.The village has a long history with evidence of Bronze Age beginnings...
(Bremetennacum
Bremetennacum
Bremetennacum was a Roman fort which is now the village of Ribchester in Lancashire . The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The first Roman activity on the site was the establishment of a timber fort believed to have been constructed during the campaigns of Petillius Cerialis around AD 72/3...
) roughly followed the line of the A56 road
A56 road
The A56 is a road in England which extends between the city of Chester in Cheshire and the village of Broughton in North Yorkshire. The road contains a mixture of single and dual carriageway sections, and traverses environments as diverse as the dense urban sprawl of inner city Manchester and the...
(Bury new Road) which is just to the east of Kersal Moor. There was a Roman camp at Rainsough just to the west, and some have speculated that there may have been a second camp to the east, in the area known as Castle Hill, making a defensive line across the moor to protect the north of Mamucium.
The 18th century historian John Whitaker
John Whitaker (historian)
John Whitaker B.D., F.S.A. , was an English historian and Anglican clergyman. Besides historical studies on the Roman Empire and on the early history of Great Britain he was a reviewer for London magazines and a poet.-Life:He was the son of James Whitaker, innkeeper, and was born in Manchester on...
said of the moor:
The moor of Kersal was in the time of the Romans, perhaps in that of the Briton's before them, and for many ages after both, a thicket of oaks and a pasture for hogs; and the little knolls, that so remarkably diversify the plain, and are annually covered with mingled crowds rising in ranks over ranks to the top, were once the occasional seats of the herdsmen that superintended these droves into the woods.
However, the last of these trees were burnt around 1880.
Sport on the moor
The first Manchester Racecourse was sited on the moor. The earliest record of horse-racing is contained in the following notice in the London GazetteLondon Gazette
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
of 2–5 May 1687:
On Carsall Moore near Manchester in Lancashire on the 18th instant, a 20£. plate will be run for to carry ten stone, and ride three heats, four miles each heat. And the next day another plate of 40£. will be run for at the same moore, riding the same heats and carrying the same weight. The horses marks are to be given in four days before to Mr. William Swarbrick at the Kings Arms in Manchester.
The racecourse is shown on the map of 1848 as a roughly oval-shaped course extending around the west, north and east of the moor, crossing Moor Lane and carrying on around the ground that is now the home of Salford City F.C.
Salford City F.C.
Salford City F.C. are a semi-professional football club based in the Kersal area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. They are the only semi-professional side in the City of Salford, with Manchester United the closest league club. Salford City currently play in the Northern Premier League...
, roughly following the line of what is now Nevile Road. John Byrom
John Byrom
John Byrom or John Byrom of Kersal or John Byrom of Manchester FRS was an English poet and inventor of a revolutionary system of shorthand. He is also remembered as the writer of the lyrics of Anglican hymn Christians Awake, salute the happy morn.- Early life :John Byrom was descended from an old...
(1692–1763), the owner of Kersal Cell, was greatly opposed to the racing and wrote a pamphlet against it, but the racing continued for fifteen years when, probably through Dr Byrom's influence, they were stopped in 1746, the year of the Jacobite rising
Jacobite rising
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...
. The races recommenced in 1759 and were then held every year until 1846, when they were transferred to the New Barns racecourse. Racing carried on there until the new Castle Irwell
Manchester Racecourse
Manchester Racecourse was a former racecourse in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Manchester Racecourse moved several times but remained within Salford in the 19th and 20th centuries...
Racecourse was built,just across the river from the moor, in Lower Broughton
Broughton, Greater Manchester
Broughton is an inner city area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the east bank of the River Irwell and A56 road, in the northeastern part of the City of Salford, north-northwest of Manchester city centre and south of Prestwich. Broughton consists of Broughton Park, Higher...
in 1847.
Moston, Greater Manchester
Moston is a district of Manchester, in North West England, approximately 3 miles north east of the city centre. Historically a part of Lancashire, Moston is a predominantly residential area, with a population of about 12,500 and covering approximately .-History:The name Moston may derive...
through marriage to the widowed Barbara Minshull, after such a race.
The moor has also been used for a number of other sporting activities. In the 18th and early 19th century archery
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
was still practised as a village sport, and the archers of Broughton
Broughton, Greater Manchester
Broughton is an inner city area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the east bank of the River Irwell and A56 road, in the northeastern part of the City of Salford, north-northwest of Manchester city centre and south of Prestwich. Broughton consists of Broughton Park, Higher...
, Cheetham and Prestwich
Prestwich
Prestwich is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies close to the River Irwell, north of Manchester city centre, north of Salford and south of Bury....
were renowned countrywide. The Broughton archers
Archers
Archers may refer to:*People who practice archery*The Royal Company of Archers, a Scottish ceremonial unit*The Archers, long running BBC Radio 4 soap opera*"The Archers", nickname for British film-making partnership of Powell and Pressburger...
practised their sport on Kersal Moor and in 1793 the Manchester writer, James Ogden, composed a poem in praise of them, which begins:
and ends with:
By 1830 however, archery had become the sport of gentlemen and an exclusive club called "The Broughton Archers" was formed, the membership of which included some of the most influential men in the town. They originally met at a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
nicknamed "Hard backed Nan's" on the site of Bishopscourt where the Bishop of Manchester
Bishop of Manchester
The Bishop of Manchester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Manchester in the Province of York.The current bishop is the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, the 11th Lord Bishop of Manchester, who signs Nigel Manchester. The bishop's official residence is Bishopscourt, Bury New Road,...
now resides, but after Bury New Road was built and the site became too public, they moved to the Turf Tavern on Kersal Moor.
In 1818 a golf course
Golf course
A golf course comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, fairway, rough and other hazards, and a green with a flagstick and cup, all designed for the game of golf. A standard round of golf consists of playing 18 holes, thus most golf courses have this number of holes...
was founded on the moor for the Manchester Golf Club, a group of Manchester businessmen, some of whom had emigrated from Scotland. This was only the second course to be built outside Scotland. The course at that time consisted of only five holes and had no fairways or greens as the players had to share the ground with other users. The club was very exclusive and by 1825 a club house had been built on Singleton Road. By 1869 the course had increased to nine holes and the club continued playing on the moor until 1862 when a new course was built a few hundred yards away at Kersal Vale.
Public gatherings and military use
As one of the largest open spaces close to Manchester, the moor has a history of use for army manoeuvres and large public gatherings. In his book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels.Originally written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels' first book, written during his stay in...
, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
referred to it as the Mons Sacer of Manchester. This was a reference to the hill to which the plebs
Plebs
The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...
(common citizens) of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
withdrew en masse in 494 BC as an act of civil protest.
In 1789 and 1790 there had been a spate of highway and house robberies. Gangs of armed men had entered houses in the middle of the night and taken away all they could carry. Armed patrols were placed around the neighbourhood to little effect until, at last, a man named James Macnamara was arrested with three others for burglary at the Dog and Partridge Inn on Stretford Road. Macnamara was tried at Lancaster Assizes
Lancaster Castle
Lancaster Castle is a medieval castle located in Lancaster in the English county of Lancashire. Its early history is unclear, but may have been founded in the 11th century on the site of a Roman fort overlooking a crossing of the River Lune. In 1164, the Honour of Lancaster, including the...
and sentenced to be hanged on Kersal moor as a warning to other criminals. A large number of people came to watch the. execution but, as Joseph Aston said in his Metrical Records of Manchester "no one could suppose that the example had any use ... as several persons had their pockets picked within sight of the gallows and the following night a house was broken into and robbed in Manchester".
The Stockport
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...
, Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, and Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
Volunteers were reviewed on Kersal Moor on 25 August 1797 and in June 1812, 30,000 troops from the Wiltshire Regiment
Wiltshire Regiment
The Wiltshire Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 62nd Regiment of Foot and the 99th Duke of Edinburgh's Regiment of Foot....
, Buckinghamshire
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry was an infantry regiment of the British Army.The regiment was formed as a consequence of Childers reforms, a continuation of the Cardwell reforms, by the amalgamation of the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 52nd Regiment of Foot , forming the 1st...
, Louth
Royal Ulster Rifles
The Royal Ulster Rifles was a British Army infantry regiment. It saw service in the Second Boer War, Great War, the Second World War and the Korean War, before being amalgamated into the Royal Irish Rangers in 1968.-History:...
and Stirling regiments were camped there ready for action to suppress the Luddites. In 1818 a protest meeting was held on the moor by coal miners to publicise their case for better pay, because of the dangers they faced at work.
A duel was fought on the moor in July 1804 between Mr. Jones and Mr. Shakspere Philips. Mr. Jones fired at Mr. Philips without effect and Mr. Philips then fired his pistol in the air, upon which the seconds interfered, the two man shook hands, and honour was satisfied. Two weeks later, two other men who had been quarrelling in the newspapers, met on the moor to gain satisfaction. However, the magistrates had been informed and the men were arrested before the duel could take place.
On 12 April 1831 the 60th Rifle Corps
King's Royal Rifle Corps
The King's Royal Rifle Corps was a British Army infantry regiment, originally raised in colonial North America as the Royal Americans, and recruited from American colonists. Later ranked as the 60th Regiment of Foot, the regiment served for more than 200 years throughout the British Empire...
had carried out an exercise
Military exercise
A military exercise is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat...
on the Moor under the command of Lieutenant P.S. Fitzgerald, and a detachment of seventy four men were returning to their barracks in Salford by way of Lower Broughton
Broughton, Greater Manchester
Broughton is an inner city area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the east bank of the River Irwell and A56 road, in the northeastern part of the City of Salford, north-northwest of Manchester city centre and south of Prestwich. Broughton consists of Broughton Park, Higher...
and Pendleton
Pendleton, Greater Manchester
Pendleton is an inner city area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is about from Manchester city centre. The A6 dual carriageway skirts the east of the district....
. As the men were crossing the Broughton Suspension Bridge
Broughton Suspension Bridge
Broughton Suspension Bridge was a suspended-deck suspension bridge built in 1826 to span the River Irwell between Broughton and Pendleton, now in Greater Manchester, England. It was one of the first suspension bridges constructed in Europe. On 12 April 1831 the bridge collapsed, reportedly owing...
, built four years earlier by Fitzgeralds's father, they felt it begin to vibrate in time with their footsteps, and before they had reached the other side the bridge collapsed. Although no one was killed twenty men were injured, six of them seriously. It was this incident that caused the British Military to issue the order for soldiers to "break step" when crossing a bridge.
The largest of a series of Chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
meetings was held on the moor on 24 September 1838. The meeting, which was planned as a show of strength and to elect delegates for the Chartist national convention, attracted speakers from all over the country and a massive crowd, which was estimated at 30,000 by the Manchester Guardian and 300,000 by the Morning Advertiser.
The Chartists were active for the next eight months, but the poor attendance at a second meeting held on the moor at the same time as a racing fixture on 25 May 1839, signalled the end of the movement and, although the movement was not successful initially, most of the Chartists' demands were eventually met by Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
.
In 1848, the moor was used as an encampment for the East Norfolk Regiment as part of an increased military presence in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
brought about by the unrest caused by Chartist agitation.
Other pursuits
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
s from a rotting alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
on the moor. These turned out to be a previously unknown species of moth, but they were mistakenly attributed to a friend of Cribb's, the collector R. Wood, who had asked an expert to identify them. The moths were classified as Pancalia woodiella (today Euclemensia woodiella
Euclemensia woodiella
Euclemensia woodiella, the Manchester Tinea , is a yellow and brown British moth known by only three of examples, one of which is held by Manchester Museum, one by the Natural History Museum, London, and the type, which is in the Curtis Collection at Museum Victoria.At first placed in Pancalia or...
) in Wood's honour.
The only specimen I have seen of this beautiful Moth, which is larger than the others, is a female; it was taken on Kersall-Moor, the middle of last June by Mr. R. Wood of Manchester to whom I have the pleasure of dedicating it:- a most zealous and successful naturalist, to whose liberality I am indebted for many valuable insects. - John CurtisJohn Curtis (entomologist)John Curtis was an English entomologist and illustrator.-Biography:Curtis was born in Norwich and learned his engraving skills in the workshop of his father, Charles Morgan Curtis...
writing in British EntomologyBritish EntomologyBritish Entomology is a classic work of entomology by John Curtis, F.L.S.Described as British Entomology, being illustrations and descriptions of the genera of insects found in Great Britain and Ireland; containing coloured figures from nature of the most rare and beautiful species, and in many...
1830
Enraged by this, and by accusations of fraudulently passing off foreign moths as British, Cribb gave up collecting and left the rest of the specimens with his landlady as security for a debt. Here the stories from Manchester University and The Australian Museum, Victoria, differ as to whether it was Cribb's pub landlady or the landlady of his lodgings, but either way the result was the same. The debt was not paid on time and when Cribb went back for the moths, which he had already sold to another collector, his landlady had burnt them. Subsequent efforts by other collectors to find more of the moths were unsuccessful, and the three specimens left in existence are thought to be the only representatives of an extinct species.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a Mr. Cosmo Melvill contributed an article to the Journal of Botany in which he gave a list of more than 240 plants and flowers, not including mosses, that he had found on the moor.
Hulme
Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England. Located immediately south of Manchester city centre, it is an area with significant industrial heritage....
. After discharging a number of fireworks form a height of over 1000 feet, Lieutenant Gale drifted in various directions and made abortive attempts to land in a number of locations. Eventually, at about 10pm, the ballon descended safely in the farm yard of Mr Josiah Taylor on Kersal Moor.
In 1852, Queen Victoria commissioned a painting by the artist William Wyld
William Wyld
William Wyld was an English painter.-Life:Born to a family that had produced rich merchants for several generations, he gained a pronounced taste for drawing very young. On the death of a young uncle after a fall from a horse when William was aged 6, William inherited his drawing materials...
which became A view of Manchester from Kersal Moor (pictured). The painting, which depicts the moor as a beautiful pastoral scene overlooking Castle Irwell Racecourse and the industrial landscape of Manchester, is now in the Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
where it is listed as Manchester from Higher Broughton. A steel line engraving of the painting by the engraver Edward Goodall was also commissioned.
Literary references
The English radical and writer Samuel BamfordSamuel Bamford
Samuel Bamford , was an English radical and writer, who was born in Middleton, Lancashire.-Biography:...
mentions Kersal Moor in his book Passages in the Life of a Radical (1840–1844) when he advises one of his friends to make his way from Middleton
Middleton, Greater Manchester
Middleton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Irk, south-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester...
to Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
via Kersal Moor to avoid the authorities:
Healey I advised to go to his brother at Bolton, and get some money, and keep out of sight entirely, until something further was known. His best way would be to avoid Manchester, and go over Kersal moor and Agecroft bridge; and as I had a relation in that quarter who wished to see me, I would keep him company as far as Agecroft.
The races on the moor were mentioned in the nineteenth century novel The Manchester Man by Mrs. G Linnaeus Banks
Isabella Banks
Isabella Varley Banks , also known as Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks or Isabella Varley, was a 19th-century writer of English poetry and novels, born in Manchester, England...
(1874). The hero of the story, Jabez Clegg, meets a street boy named Kit Townley, of whom Mrs. Banks says:
He knew him to be not over-scrupulous. He had seen him at Knott Mill Fair and Dirt Fair (so called from its being held in muddy November), or at Kersal Moor Races, with more money to spend in pop, nuts, and gingerbread, shows and merry-go-rounds, flying boats and flying boxes, fighting cocks and fighting men, than he could possibly have saved out of the sum his father allowed him for pocket-money, even if he had been of the saving
kind; and, coupling all these things together, Jabez was far from satisfied.
It is also mentioned in a collection of poems by Philip Connell called "Poaching on Parnassus" published in 1865.
Lines to Mr. Isaac Holden
by Philip Connell
on his Drawing of the Prestwich Lunatic Asylum:
And Southward at due distance the huge hive,
Of busy Manchester is all alive,
Its towering chimnies, domes and steeples rise,
In strange confusion thro' the hazy skies;
There Broughton glimmers in the evening sun;
Here Cheetham Hill o'ertops the vapours dun;
There Kersal Moor the same bleak front doth shew,
That met the view Eight hundred years ago,
Where Clunian Monks there with their God did dwell,
Within the precincts of its holy cell.
In 1876 the Lancashire dialect
Lancashire dialect and accent
Lancashire dialect and accent refers to the vernacular speech in Lancashire, one of the counties of England. Simon Elmes' book Talking for Britain said that Lancashire dialect is now much less common than it once was, but it is not yet extinct...
poet and songwriter Edwin Waugh
Edwin Waugh
Edwin Waugh , poet, son of a shoemaker, was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, England, and, after a little schooling, apprenticed to a printer, Thomas Holden, at the age of 12...
moved from his Manchester home to Kersal Moor for the "fresher air". Waugh's early life was spent in Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
and although he worked in Manchester he yearned for the moors he remembered from his youth. He wrote the following poem about Kersal Moor
As his health declined, Waugh moved to the seaside town of New Brighton
New Brighton, Merseyside
New Brighton is a seaside resort forming part of the town of Wallasey, in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in the metropolitan county of Merseyside, England. It is located at the northeastern tip of the Wirral Peninsula, within the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, and has sandy beaches...
. On his death in 1890, his body was brought back to be buried in the graveyard of St. Paul's Church, on the edge of the moorland he loved so well.