Westhay Moor

Westhay Moor from the north

Westhay Moor in Somerset (sometimes, historically, referred to as West Hay Moor) (ST455445) is a moorland within the Somerset Levels. 1,269.3 acres of the moor was designated a "Site of Special Scientific Interest" in 1971.

The moor is a mile and a half northeast of the village of Westhay and 2½ miles from Wedmore in Somerset.

Nature and conservation

Strips from peat cutting

Westhay Moor supports a nationally outstanding community of terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates. At least 28 nationally notable invertebrate species also occur on the moor. The meadows, ditches, abandoned peat workings and hedgerows provide suitable breeding habitats for a diverse and nationally important breeding bird community.

The moor is part of the Brue Valley Living Landscape conservation project. The project commenced in January 2009 and aims to restore, recreate and reconnect habitat. It aims to ensure that wildlife is enhanced and capable of sustaining itself in the face of any change in the prevailing climate while guaranteeing farmers and other landowners can continue to use their land profitably. It is one of an increasing number of landscape scale conservation projects in the UK.

Apart from the designation as an “SSSI”, Westhay Moor is part of the “Somerset Levels and Moors Special Protection Area” under the EU Birds Directive and as a Ramsar Site, and a National Nature Reserve.

The shape of the land

Peat gatherers at Westhay

Peat stacks and cutting at Westhay

Harvesting the peat at Westhay

From the air, Westhay Moor presents a wild pattern of strped acres, marked by ages of peat cutting, leaving each field a pattern of fat green and brown stripes.

Westhay Moor originally lay at the centre of the most northerly of the two lowland raised bogs that formed in the lower Brue Valley. They reached their greatest extent at the end of the Iron Age. In the 1810s Samuel Galton, Jr. showed that bogs could be drained and dressed with clay and other soil, and built Galton's Canal.

The peat from both raised bogs were extensively dug for fuel up until the end of the Second World War, after which they were dug for horticultural peat. Large parts of Westhay Moor have now been dug back to the underlying clay exposing estuarine deposits dating from about 6000 BP before isolation from the sea and peat formation began. In 1970 the Somerset Wildlife Trust bought the first part of the last 30 acres of acid raised bog vegetation left on the Somerset Moors undamaged by peat digging or agriculture. Since then SWT have bought or been given nearly 250 acres of former peatworkings. These were sculpted and restored to wetland as the experimental area for the Avalon Marshes.

The wetland on the clay is dominated by Phragmites reed, catstail and open water. This was the term given in the late 1980s to describe the wetland restored from peat workings in the Brue Valley. The wetland restoration has been a great success and was declared a National Nature Reserve in 1995. Peat working on is now beginning to draw to a close on Westhay Moor and the majority of the remaining peatworkings are now being restored to wetland as they are completed.

Westhay Moor, forms part of the nationally important grazing marsh and ditch systems of the Somerset Levels and Moors, and is crossed by the River Brue and Galton's Canal. Over much of the moor, the water table is high throughout the year with extensive winter flooding occurring regularly. Water tables in the peat excavations are artificially lowered during active working, but excavations often fill with water for much of the year.

Outside links

"Westhay Moor". Somerset Wildlife Trust. http://www.somersetwildlife.org/reserve_4.php. Retrieved 2006-08-22.