Credit: Kirsty Tyler
Today is World Wetlands Day - a day all about celebrating wetlands and our connection to them.
The theme this year is celebrating cultural heritage – looking at how wetlands have shaped human lives, and how human lives have shaped our wetland environments.
So what cultural and historic importance do the wetlands of the north-west hold?
Bob Hurrell
Starting with one of our southernmost wetlands, Lunt Meadows has been the site for an important archaeological study for over a decade now.
NML (National Museums Liverpool)
Archaeologists from the Museum of Liverpool found traces of mesolithic, or stone age buildings dating back to around 5,800BC. This is before humans had even started farming.
Tools, burnt wood and even charred hazelnut shells have all been found at the site by archaeological volunteers, giving important insight into how these people lived, ate and possibly even into their spiritual beliefs. There have also been non local stones found that possibly originated in North Wales, showing that these people travelled large distances.
Lunt is a hugely important wetland today, acting as a successful flood defence for the surrounding area when the River Alt bursts it's banks, and also providing a home for super amounts of wetland birds as well as as a number of other species including short-eared owls.
“Will yo’ come o’ Sunday mornin’
For a walk o’er Winter Hill?
Ten thousand went last Sunday
But there’s room for thousand still!
Oh there moors are rare and bonny
And the heather’s sweet and fine
And the roads across the hilltops –
Are the people’s – yours and mine!”
You may have heard of the Kinder Scout mass trespass, but more than 30 years before that protest, two mass trespasses had happened on Darwen Moor and Winter Hill.
Jubilee Tower on Darwen Moor - Credit: A.J.Critch Wildlife
In the 1870s, the owners of Darwen Moor (who lived in Dorset) and Winter Hill (a local mill owner), set out to block locals from using moorland paths that criss-crossed the moors. These paths had long been routes for people to visit friends and family, and their routes to work, however the lords decided that more money could be made through shutting the moors off for game shooting.
The protests finally resulted (after a court case) in the public being given access to all tracks and paths across the moors. The Winter Hill trespass actually remains today as the largest mass trespass in history, with over 12,000 attendees.
Jubilee Tower at the top of Darwen Moor was built as a tribute to the protests in 1898, as well as commemorating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
This feeling of connection by the public to the moors from then up to today shows just how much the local landscapes are integral to daily life.
Hare's tail cotton grass at Little Woolden Moss - Credit: A.J.Critch Wildlife
From 2500BC Chat Moss was starting to turn into a peat bog. They were considered dangerous, full of dark pools that someone could easily get stuck into, and possibly even had some apex predators to avoid – Woolden is derived from Viking Vuluedene meaning “Wolf Valley”.
In 1958 a skull was discovered just north of Astley Moss - “Worsley Man” lived around 100AD when the Romans occupied Britain. He met a violent death, beheaded as a probable ritual sacrifice, hinting that the mosslands held religious significance for iron age man.
From the archive of Dave Woodward
Later on, armies were halted by the mosses, the poor cottagers used the peat as fuel, and even great poets (Daniel Defoe) wrote about Chat Moss (although not the kindest prose!). Travellers would be led astray into the bog pools by ‘Will 'o' the wisps’ - which were caused by escaping methane catching alight, some would never to be seen again...
Eventually the land started to be drained for agriculture, which leads us to the present day (via a lot more agriculture, peat extraction and floating railway lines).
As you can see – Chat Moss has more history than could possibly be explored in a single blog post!
Our wetlands are important for wildlife, but they’ve also been important for humankind over the millennia that we’ve been existing, and continue to be today, for birders, walkers, cyclists, photographers and artists.
