One of the new bunding areas on Darwen Moor. Credit - A.J.Critch Wildlife
Peat takes it slow - in good conditions it forms at roughly one millimetre per year, so looking at just one metre’s depth of peat is looking at a thousand years of history.
Many of the peatlands in Lancashire have had decades, if not centuries, of damaging management that’s wiped-out millennia of peat growth, in a matter of minutes in some cases. From the pollution of the industrial revolution, mining, peat extraction, and drainage, most of our peatlands are in a very poor state.
A digger on Darwen Moor - Credit: A.J.Critch Wildlife
It stands to reason then, that restoration takes time. I’m not talking about the actual ground works to help rewet and replant the bogs. Some of our sites are “completed” in a single season (August-March), whereas others are multi-year projects due to the size or complexity of the site. In relative terms, the ground works are quick, but the recovery itself - the water table stabilising, sphagnum cover increasing and peat formation starting again can take years. For a bog to reach a near-natural state it could take more than 50 years.
Smoking moorland beneath Darwen Tower, July 2026
Our work now is to make these degraded peatlands as resilient as possible, but they are up against some tough odds. Fires and droughts caused by longer, drier summers and anti-social behaviour means that restoration takes even longer. Most of the fires we are seeing this year are on degraded or only recently restored sites.
Does rewetting stop a fire from happening?
Not at the start, and not for many years. The increased water and sphagnum presence helps slow the fires down and allows the fire services and land managers to get on top of it. However, as a healthy peatland is defined by water, once it is in that more natural state, fires are highly unlikely to happen. Water doesn’t burn very well.
Darwen vegetation survey, June 26 - K Tyler
Vegetation regrowth post-works is natural, and it takes years for the landscape to transition from the Molinia (purple-moor grass), or heather dominated bogs we see across many of our hills now, to a healthy mosaic of heathers, cotton grasses, sundews and sphagnums.
With most of our sites we don’t just come in with the ground works and then leave a site to it. Once the initial restoration is completed, we work with the landowners and land managers, whether that’s a water company, a council, a farmer, a gamekeeper or another private individual, to ensure management works are undertaken that benefit the bog over the coming years.
In most cases this is vegetation management, either mowing over the winter months or grazing to help control the regrowth of higher fire-risk species (heather and Molinia) before fire season starts.
Once a site is rewetted, and vegetation management is ongoing, it’s down to being patient – and nothing teaches you patience like peatland restoration.
Our peatlands are special places that should be valued and protected. If you are visiting these sites, please follow the Countryside Code.
The Countryside Code (https://youtu.be/5Pi6p3aCKrE?si=h4fZMgLzbWieBL1m)
Watch our video highlighting some of the simple steps included in The Countryside Code
