Chat Moss? That's ancient history

DESPITE JUST 2% OF PEAT REMAINING ON THE BOGLAND, IT'S STILL RICH IN BIRDS AND INSECTS

- By KIRSTY TYLER The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside

Martyn Walker, who has been working on the Mosses for more than 30 years, with the sign for the new National Nature Reserve KIRSTY TYLER

(KIRSTY TYLER)

FROM 2500BC Chat Moss was starting to turn into a peat bog.

After being covered with birch trees, the area was starting to become increasingly acidic and our old friend sphagnum moss was starting to take hold in the nutrient-poor soil.

Around this time, oak trees started to be buried beneath the sphagnum and resulting peat soil - the same oaks that can be seen at Little Woolden Moss today, our ancient bog oaks, preserved for thousands of years.

The bogs were considered dangerous, full of dark pools that someone could easily get stuck into, and mists and fogs.

They possibly even had some apex predators to avoid - Woolden is derived from the Viking Vuluedene meaning 'Wolf Valley'.