Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve
Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve is a national nature reserve which straddles the border between England and Wales, near Whixall and Ellesmere in Shropshire, England and Bettisfield in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It comprises three peat bogs, Bettisfield Moss, Fenn's Moss and Whixall Moss. With Wem Moss and Cadney Moss, they are collectively a Site of Special Scientific Interest called The Fenn's, Whixall, Bettisfield, Wem & Cadney Moss Complex and form Britain's third-largest lowland raised bog, covering. The reserve is part of the Midland Meres and Mosses, an Important Plant Area which was declared a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention in 1997. It is also a European Special Area of Conservation.
The mosses form an ombrotrophic raised bog, since the only source of water is from rainfall. Peat is formed when the remains of living plants, particularly Sphagnum, decompose in conditions where there is little oxygen, resulting in layers of peat up to thick in places, although this has been greatly reduced by commercial harvesting of the peat in many areas. In their natural state, such mosses form a dome of peat which can be up to higher than the surrounding surface, but the domes collapsed as a result of the drainage ditches created to allow harvesting to take place. Three major enclosures of the mosses have taken place, the first as a result of a voluntary agreement signed in 1704, and ratified by the High Court of Chancery in 1710 when opposition prevented the original plans from being carried out. Two Parliamentary enclosures, each authorised by an Act of Parliament were implemented in 1775 on Fenn's Moss and in 1823 on Whixall Moss. Both resulted in common rights being removed and gave the landlords powers which paved the way for the subsequent commercial exploitation of the mosses.
In the early 1800s, the Ellesmere Canal Company built a canal across the southern edge of Whixall Moss. The engineers realised that maintenance would be required, to prevent the formation from sinking into the bog, and a gang of navvies, known as the Whixall Moss Gang, were employed continuously from 1804 to the early 1960s, to keep building up the banks of the canal, now renamed the Llangollen Canal. In the 1960s, the engineering issues were solved, when steel piling was used to underpin this section. The Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway also planned to cross the mosses, despite being ridiculed by the Great Western Railway for believing that such a thing was possible. They built their line across the north-western edge of Fenn's Moss in 1862, having cut drains in late 1861, and then put layers of heather, wooden faggots and sand on the formation, to allow it to float on the peat. Trains ran from 1862 until the 1960s, without sinking into the mire.
Commercial cutting of peat began in 1851, and a series of six peat works were built over the years, as companies came and went. In order to extract the peat, a network of gauge tramways were used, with wagons pulled by horses. The first internal combustion locomotive was bought in 1919, to replace the horses, and three more locomotives were purchased in 1967 and 1968 but did not last long, as the tramway ceased to be used in 1970, to be replaced by Dexta tractors pulling trailers. Mechanised peat cutters were also introduced in 1968. By this time, all of the harvested peat was sold through the retail chain Woolworths, for use in horticulture. The Hanmer Estate, owners of Fenn's Moss, quadrupled the rents in 1989, and the existing operation was bought out by Croxden Horticultural Products. They geared up to extract much larger volumes of peat, to meet the increased rents, but opposition to using peat was increasing, and in late December 1990, the leases were bought by the Nature Conservancy Council, bringing an end to commercial peat cutting. Since then, the mosses have been managed by Natural England and Natural Resources Wales, who have blocked up drainage ditches and removed scrub, allowing water levels to rise, and the ombrotrophic bog to re-establish itself. Circular waymarked trails have been created through some areas of Fenn's and Whixall Mosses, and on Bettisfield Moss, to allow the nature reserve to be appreciated by visitors.
Geography
Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses straddle the border between England and Wales. Fenn's Moss is on the Welsh side of the border and is in Wrexham County Borough, while Whixall Moss is in north Shropshire, on the English side of the border, and is only separated from Fenn's Moss by the Border Drain, a ditch similar to many others on the mosses, which was dug in 1826. The former, now dismantled, Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway line crosses the north-western edge of Fenn's Moss. At the southern edge of Fenn's and Whixall Mosses, the former Ellesmere Canal, now rebranded as the Llangollen Canal, crosses the peat, and Bettisfield Moss lies to the south of the canal, partly in England and partly in Wales. A narrow band of peat connects it to Wem and Cadney Mosses, which again are divided by the Border Drain. Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses were declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1953, with Wem Moss being similarly notified ten years later. The sites were combined and extended in 1994, to become a single SSSI covering, of which are in Wrexham and in Shropshire. Together they form the third-largest lowland raised bog in Britain, with only Thorne Moors and Hatfield Moors in South Yorkshire exceeding them in size. Bettisfield Moss covers, and includes the largest areas of uncut peat in the whole of the nature reserve, having been little affected by commercial peat cutting.Two other mosses are part of the same geological Moss complex, though separated from Bettisfield Moss by a strip of agricultural land. Wem Moss in England is a National Nature Reserve which is owned and managed by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, and is a good example of an uncut lowland raised bog. It covers an area of. Cadney Moss is in Wales, and has been largely reclaimed for agriculture and forestry.
Whixall Moss and part of Bettisfield Moss sits above bedrock composed of fine red silt and sand, forming an impermeable layer once known as Upper Keuper Marls. To the north-west of these, the bedrock is composed of Upper Keuper Saliferous Beds, which contain rock salt. Both rock types were re-classified in 2008, and are now part of the Mercia Mudstone Group. As the last ice age receded, the area was covered with glacial moraine, consisting of sands, gravels and clays, in places up to thick, and this gives the area its characteristic undulating terrain. The shallower depressions filled with peat, and gave rise to the mosses, whereas some of the deeper depressions have remained as open lakes or meres. The depth of peat varies widely over the mosses, from over in parts of Bettisfield Moss and Fenn's Moss, to around on parts of Whixall and Fenn's Mosses where commercial peat digging was carried out, and there are some areas where such activity has exposed the underlying rocks.
The mosses are ombrotrophic raised bogs, meaning that they only receive water from rainfall. Such bogs form in areas with an annual rainfall of between which are relatively flat, or which sit over a basin in the underlying rocks, which helps to prevent water run-off. In their natural state, they form domes of peat, which can be up to higher than the surrounding surface. On the surface are living plants, particularly Sphagnum, which form a crust through which water can permeate relatively easily. Below that, the compacted plant remains are deprived of oxygen, which prevents the usual decay processes, causing them to become peat. Commercial exploitation of the mosses, and their consequent drainage, have resulted in water table levels dropping, and consequently less peat formation.
Fenn's Moss is the source of the Wych Brook, a tributary of the River Dee, which flows northwards from the Moss. The River Roden, a tributary of the River Tern, also rises in the vicinity of Bettisfield and flows southwards to form part of the border between England and Wales near Wem Moss. Near the south-eastern corner of Whixall Moss the never-completed Prees Branch of the Llangollen Canal branches off, to terminate after nearly at a marina, beyond which a little more of the route has become the Prees Branch Canal Nature Reserve Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Occupation
There has been human activity on the mosses for millennia, as evidenced by archaeological finds. These include three bog bodies, the first of which was found by peat cutters in c.1867. The body, which was accompanied by a three-legged stool, was that of a young man wearing a leather apron, and was dated to the Iron Age or Romano-British period. The body of a woman from the same period was found in c.1877, and that of a much older Early Bronze Age man was uncovered in 1889. The acidic water and the lack of oxygen resulted in their hair and skin being preserved, while their bones had dissolved. All three were re-buried in local churchyards, the first two at Whitchurch and the third at Whixall, where the remains would have quickly decomposed. In 1927, a Middle Bronze-Age looped palstave, a type of bronze axe, was discovered among remains of a band of pine trees which had crossed the Moss during that period, and can now be seen at the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.There is no documentary evidence for the cutting of peat on the mosses prior to 1572, but it is unclear whether this indicates that it was not general practice, or if there was just no need to burn peat when there was plenty of wood available. Subsequently, a right of turbary, to cut peat for burning was granted to individuals by the Lord of the Manor, and those who were found to be cutting peat but were unlicensed were fined, but the fines were quite modest, suggesting that it was a way of generating income for the Lord of the Manor rather than an attempt to stop the activity. From 1630 it is clear that higher fines were levied on those who sold the peat to people living outside of the manor, while by 1702, peat cutting was more closely regulated, and the levels of fine for unlicensed cutting, or for cutting turves in a neighbour's turf pit, were punitive.