canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat July 2018 89
It’s recommended you stick to
the paths. All around us were
no-entry signs. It would be foolish
not to heed them
Along the way were lichened wooden
plaques with some of the creatures that are
found here. Adder, curlew, short-eared owl,
hobby, nightjar. The area is rich in all kinds
of flora and fauna. There are 29 species of
dragonfly and damselfly, 32 of butterflies,
670 of moth, and over 160 recorded birds,
including waders like the bittern and
whimbrel. Not to mention the plants, which
include over 18 species of sphagnum bog
mosses.
Looking around, it was hard to conceive
of such a place ever having been busy, this
wilderness. It looked so untamed. But the
opposite is true. Further on there were
chopped down silver birches laid along the
side of the path. They’re everywhere and
shouldn’t be. One of the damaging effects of
peat-cutting is the draining of the water,
which encourages such vigorous species to
take root. This means the pushing out of the
native species like the bog mosses that
absorb and acidify rain, waterlog the peat,
and ensure that only certain types of life
thrive. These are in turn pickled and
preserved. It also means that the carbon
trapped in the bogs is released, speeding up
climate change.
Where the path turned south again we
carried on west through the trees to see Old
Fenn’s Works, an old peat mill from 1938-63.
It’s thought to be the only one left of its kind
anywhere in the world, now just a rusted-
iron skeleton standing in the clear. We
stopped to sit and drink a flask of coffee,enjoying the sun, on the bleached grass
before retracing our steps.
Our route took us along an old tramway,
with deep drainage ditches on either side, to
the south-western corner which brought us
to the canal, which was completed in 1804,
and allowed commercial exploitation tobegin. A team of men were continually
employed until the 1960s to maintain the
clay banks which kept sinking into the peat.
Here the birdsong returned, and we walked
back up the towpath, past alder carrs and
more birch woods, back to the boat. In all it
took two hours.CANAL WALK