Edge o' t' Moss 6 - Timberland Trail Traditional Cache

The landscape here is one of farmland scattered with tiny woods, and as you head east across the Glaze Brook you start to encounter the wide expanses of raised moss and heathland that once  characterised this area. This series will show you all these landscapes, with a dash of local history thrown in for good measure.

The whole walk is roughly 10 miles long and is virtually all flat. However, as we're on the edge of mossland here, please be advised that in all but the warmest summer months there is going to be MUD. You might want to do these caches in your wellies...

The Sixth Cache

Continue south from the Sentinel, past Moss House Farm, along the Timberland Trail.

The Glaze Brook Timberland Trail is an 11-mile walk which takes you from Pennington Flash Country Park in Leigh to the Manchester Ship Canal at Cadishead in Salford. It is one of twelve trails in each of the Community Forests that have been funded by a partnership between Timberland and the Countryside Agency. The few trees you can see in this area form part of the Mersey Forest, the largest of the 12 national Community Forests, which covers a large swathe of Merseyside, North Cheshire and Greater Manchester. The well managed stretch of woodland just north of the cache site is a good example of the regeneration through forestry which is at the heart of the project.

As you pass through the woodland you'll see the Timberland Trail head to the right slightly, across a small stream and into a large field. This stream is one of the drainage channels from Little Woolden Moss, serving the huge network of ditches which resemble a Piet Mondrian painting on the Ordnance Survey map. This is a reminder how much effort it has taken to keep the Mosses from reverting to their original state. In fact without the huge number of drainage channels Chat Moss would be unusable for farming. Several centuries ago there was so much water in Chat Moss that it actually overflowed. John Leland, a Tudor historian and travel writer, commented upon this sixteenth century inundation in his Itinerary:

"It erupted within a mile of Morleys Hall, and ruined much land in the area with its moss, as well as destroying many freshwater fish there. First it polluted the Glazebrook with foul water, which was then carried, along with moss, by the Glazebrook to the River Mersey. The engulfed Mersey then carried waves of moss to the Welsh coast, the Isle of Man and Ireland. At the very top of Chat Moss, where the moss was highest and erupted, there is now a good level valley, as there used to be. A stream runs in it, and pieces of small trees can be seen on the valley floor."

All of this destruction happened a couple of miles northeast of here, and it is difficult to imagine the rather peaceful Glaze Brook, swollen and gorged with peat and moss, pounding quickly southwards towards the Mersey and the sea.

A good example of how much drainage has changed this landscape is visible from the cache site. As you approach the cache, take a look across to the other bank of the Glaze Brook, to the rather smart farmhouse. This is Holcroft Hall, and John Leland comments on this too - "Sir John Holcroft's house, which is a mile or more from Morleys, was in danger of being inundated by the moss." How times have changed!