The Wheel on the Moss

People didn't hang around when they wanted to change things in Victorian England. Richard Thomas Gillow, the owner of Leighton Hall in the 1840's decided he wanted to drain the Moss for agriculture. Efforts had been made before with limited success, but this time he was serious: new embankments, ditches and a steam pump were all on the agenda. He spoke to a neighbour who already had experience with steam engines -- Robert Waithman, the owner of a flax Mill at Holme -- and then he sat down and sketched out his plans. The design below is taken from his notebook, still in the archive at Leighton Hall. It shows the steam-powered wheel that he wanted to install to push water off the Moss.  He took his idea to a Preston foundry which produced more detailed plans in October 1847. A little over two months later the finished engine was ready to deliver. Meanwhile, Robinsons the builders constructed an engine house and rebuilt the chimney at Crag Foot...and they were ready to pump!     

A Page from the notebook of Squire Richard Thomas Gillow: the man who drained the Moss. (Courtesy of Richard Reynolds) 

Judge the Cover

It's weeks since I finished writing the book but it only seems real now there's a cover. My colleagues at Carnegie Publishing (Anna Goddard and Lucy Frontani)   have sent me a mock-up -- not the finished thing, there are a few photoshop flourishes yet to come -- but you get the general idea.

I hope we've done enough to make clear that this book is more history than natural history: under the cover there are plenty of stunning photos from talented and mainly local wildlife photographers including Mike Malpas, Brian Rafferty, Kevin Kelly, David Kjaer, Brian Howson and many others (full credits in the book!). I've also focussed on the fascinating story of the early days of the RSPB down on the Moss. But there are also some tremendous and touching photos from earlier years -- like the lovely picture on the back cover of John Walker, horseman at Yealand Hall Farm, one of the last men to plough the Moss during the Great War. John's son Arthur Walker loaned me this one.

The misshapen silver coin on the back of the book is part of the Viking hoard discovered barely an axe throw from the Moss a couple of years back. The handsome chap pictured below the coin is not me (far too modest!) but the broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham, who has been kind enough to write a cracking little foreword to the book. I think he's rather keen on our Moss or "this fabulous jewel in the beautiful north west", as he prefers to call it!

It's a slightly nerve-wracking time now, leading up the launch party at RSPB Leighton Moss in September (more details to follow), but after living with the book for almost a year, I'm allowing myself to get just a little excited...

Boss on the Moss

Chair of the RSPB Steve Ormerod was one of the speakers at a celebratory lunch this week to mark the 50th birthday of the Leighton Moss reserve.

He joined staff, volunteeers, local supporters and representatives of funding organisations for an outdoor lunch in the new walled garden behind the Myers Farm visitors' centre.


Dr Ormerod is Professor of Ecology at Cardiff University's School of Biosciences and has been Chair of the RSPB's ruling Council since 2012.

But he was plain Steve Ormerod when he first visited Leighton Moss as a child, travelling to the reserve with his dad from their home in Burnley. 

The Arnside and Silverdale area had always seemed a special place  and still was today, he said. Leighton Moss was a jewel in the RSPB's crown and he was proud to celebrate the reserve's birthday as both RSPB Chair and as a Lancastrian. 

After the speeches the RSPB's Chair cut a Golden 50th Anniversary Ribbon held at either end by the Reserve's two long-serving wardens: John Wilson (far right), now retired, and David Mower on the left of the picture, who retires this year after 27 years at Leighton Moss.    

                                                              





                                                                                    Art Work

Guests at the lunch also had the opportunity to admire the ceramic art works made by pupils from local schools and used to decorate the walled garden. 

Leah Sierpinski and Adam Lynch, both Year 10 pupils from Dallam School in Milnthorpe, were on hand to represent their school and the hard work and creativity that youngsters and their teachers had applied to the project. 

Where's Midge?

Midge is my two year old collie-labrador cross: is that a Lolly or a Cabrador...? Anyway, she's my regular, enthusiastic companion on walks around the area. Admittedly she's much more interested in squirrels, deer and other dogs than the finer points of local history. But she is a fairly good listener.
As we we get closer to the September launch of the Leighton Moss history book, I'll be posting a series of shots of Midge in significant historical locations around the area -- all within a mile or so of the Moss.  The first person to correctly name the location will receive a free copy of the book as soon as it is published. 

So where is this "Me and my Shadow" shot taken? Any thoughts?

The Mystery of Quaker's Stang

The walk across the salt marsh from Crag Foot to Jenny Brown's Point is one of my favourites. And like nearly every other walker I meet,  I'm intrigued by its name: Quaker's Stang. It begs the immediate questions: who was this Quaker...and what in the name of Jenny Brown is a stang?

I might as well admit from the start: I don't actually know what Quaker's Stang means. But that's not going to stop me theorising! Like many others I have trawled the internet in search of a direct translation. A stang, it seems can be a unit of measurement... same as a perch, apparently, or about five and a half yards in modern currency. It might also mean a pole. It's tempting to picture a seventeenth century Quaker making a perilous crossing of the foreshore equipped with his trusty pole ... or perhaps he (or she) planted one or more strategic waymark poles on the sands to assist travellers. 

But I suspect this attempt at literal translation misses the point. On the modern Ordnance Survey map Quaker's Stang is associated directly with the sea-defences that cross the entrance to Leighton Moss. We talk about walking on Quaker's Stang. 





This embankment -- with its sluice gate on the Lindeth side and fine limestone facings -- was the work in 1840 of Richard Thomas Gillow. Or more accurately,  it was the work of about 20 local men employed by Squire Gillow at 2 shillings and eightpence a day. (Squire Gillow offered them 2/2d a day but they held out for the extra sixpence!)

My suspicion is that names have become a little confused over the years. Looking at Greenwood's map of Lancashire from 1818 -- more than 20 years before the Squire commissioned his sea embankment -- there is a Quaker's Stang clearly marked. But it seems to be referring to the stream that drains the Moss: the stream that today we call Quicksand Pool. 

Greenwood's Map of Lancashire from 1818

 And here we come to a point raised by Rod Ireland, one of the excellent lecturers at the AONB Trust's Landscape History weekend earlier this month. Might Quaker's Stang, Rod suggested,  be a corruption of the much older name Quicksand Pool? In a thirteenth century Warton Manorial Charter the name of the stream draining the Moss is written -- in Latin --  as "Quytsandpole". Perhaps by 1818, repetition, mishearing and mis-transcription  had modified this to Quaker's Stang.  At some point post-1840 the label transferred from the stream to Squire Gillow's new embankment. And just to add to this confusing morass,  the old Quicksand Pool name itself survives on modern maps as the name for the stream. I feel the waters closing over my head. Quick someone, pass me a stang!

 

A Taller Crag Foot Chimney

I'm sure it is no surprise to many local people, but it never occurred to me that the Crag Foot chimney had ever been any taller than it is today. Not so long ago it was quite a bit higher  -- as this photo from M. Moseley's files held at The Northern Mine Research Society clearly shows. The darker top section was brick-built. A few years ago -- I'm not sure how many --  it was becoming unstable. The bricks were pushed into the body of the chimney to avoid accidents. 

Happy Birthday Leighton Moss

Birders flocked to the RSPB's Education Room at Leighton Moss on Saturday and Sunday (May 8/9) to enjoy a 50th Anniversary History Exhibition.

John Wilson, founder Warden at the reserve, was on hand to share memories of the RSPB's early days. But he also chipped in with the morning bulletin on the reserve's bearded tit population: although retired since 2000, John is still to be found most days down on the Moss. (NB the "beardies" are doing very well, apparently).




Jacqui Fereday -- the RSPB's Visitor Services Manager -- was kind enough to allow me to advertise my upcoming book on the history of the Moss at the exhibition, and I'm pleased to say there was much more interest than my photograph (right) indicates.


The event also gave me an opportunity to inspect some of the cracking photos that Jacqui and her colleagues have assembled for the anniversary including this nostalgic shot of the mid-1960's "Visitor Centre" on the reserve...or "hut" as it was more commonly known.

And this evocation of the joys of ditch-clearing, from a decade later.


The birthday events continue throughout the year at Myers Farm and visitors should look out for details of walks and the fun/informative history trail around the Moss.

Meanwhile I'm working with Carnegie Publishing of Lancaster to finish the book --"The Golden Bowl: A History of Leighton Moss" -- in time for a September launch.

Watch this space!