War Walks on the Home Front- The Moss Goes to War

1. Start from Manor House Natural England base and go out onto the road by Fenn’s Wood farm, turn right, through the gate and on to the track junction at point 2.

2.  If you look carefully you will see the original narrow gauge railway lines that were used to move vast amounts of peat around the site.  Initially trucks were pulled by horses.

3.  Turn around and you will see the concrete bases that are all that remains of the English Moss Litter Co Peat Factory, the processing factory where the bedding for the Bettisfield Park remount centre. Now move on along the track to the North West until you come to a bench and interpretation board.

4.  From this slightly higher spot you can see over the moss with the tree defined line of the railway to the north where the Boar War and WW2 ranges and bombing site were.  The Interpretation board tells the military history of the Moss from the Boar wars to WW 2 and the bench offer an opportunity to rest.  From here move along the track to the main track junction.

5.  On this higher ground look to the north where there is a slightly domed area, this is called the Tumps which it is believed to have been the site of a bronze/Iron age encampment.  The Moss would have been very different in those days being more of an open water wetland abounding with game and wildfowl and an ideal place for our ancestors’ to live and hunt.  Now turn and walk to the south east until you come to a raised section of track.

6.  This section of track is where the narrow gauge tramway ran during the war.  From here continue along the track to an interesting but not WW1 site.

7.  When you see a raised platform with an interpretation board turn south east, make sure you follow the track which has bridges over two very deep drainage ditches!  This is the reconstructed WW2 “starfish Site”.  The 65 fire baskets were lit in an attempt to lure German bombers to target them and not the industrial sites of the Merseyside.  The interpretation board will tell you the whole story of this place and Colonel Turner.  Go back to the main track and continue on for about 40 metres and turn down the main track, on your left you will pass a weather station that is part of an international study into climate change.  Continue on after a zig-zag in the track until you can turn east along the main track and then road out of the reserve.

8. Here you will see a WFD plaque.  This talks of the importance of the moss for nature.  In WW1 it was a major source not only of bedding for horses but for sterile field dressings used to treat wounds.  The sphagnum moss is very acidic and thus totally sterile.  Once dried out it makes an ideal and very adsorbent wound dressing.  At the height of the war Britain was producing over a million of these dressings every month.  From here walk along the track past the battery shed at point 9, this was where the starfish site baskets were lit remotely.  Then past the Moss Cottages at point 10 before turning back into the Manor House base.

Fenn’s Whixall is in the Meres and Mosses Landscape Partnership Scheme area. Learn more about this fascinating landscape by visiting their website.