World Heritage Day: How a £250k heritage grant is helping a local partnership restore Lindow Moss

17th April 2025

Few of today’s stories start at the most recent Ice Age, almost 20,000 years ago. But this is when Lindow Moss formed. It’s a multi-layered landscape within Wilmslow, Cheshire, and it has multiple stories to tell. So, there aren’t many better places to highlight how National Lottery funding helps the natural (as well as historical, cultural, and architectural) heritage of the UK.

In fact, Lindow Moss is very special – one of few peatlands across the world, places that cover just 3% of Earth’s surface yet hold nearly 30% of the soil carbon according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

To help us appreciate this place, Professor Emeritus John Handley OBE is our guide for a stroll through Lindow’s landscape and its layers of history. A renowned academic, and environmentalist (laureate of the United Nations Environment Programme Global 500), John was a founding director of Groundwork which became the Federation of Groundwork Trusts (a major grantee of National Lottery funding).

Today, John is actively engaged in significant heritage work being done by Lindow Moss Landscape Partnership. The partnership has several organisations with expertise in heritage and the environment, as well as university researchers and the local council. In 2025, the partnership is feeling the benefits from a £250,000 grant by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2024 (originally paid to the grant holder for this partnership, Groundwork Cheshire Lancashire & Merseyside).

Prof John Handley — John Handley points out a Bird Cherry tree. John says, “Its white blossom should be out in April [annually]. It’s the only example I know of this particular tree in this local area.”

Lindow Man

You may recognise the location, older readers almost certainly will. Lindow Moss was where ‘Lindow Man’, a so-called bog body, was found in the peat marsh, well preserved since around 60A.D. When unearthed by commercial peat cutting in 1984, Lindow Man had huge media interest, the world over. Yet this is just a chapter in a much wider, deeper heritage story, and one that’s very much alive – the story of the landscape.

Lindow poster and room — "Lindow Man is like a talisman," says John. "He's our poster boy as you can see." The actual bodily remains of Lindow Man still draw huge visitor numbers at The British Museum (itself a recipient of millions of National Lottery funds over decades). Notably, in 2007, Lindow Man was brought (almost) home by a £43,700 grant for an exhibition stay at The Manchester Museum.

Lindow Moss

“The local partnership is focused on the conservation, restoration and interpretation of the landscape at Lindow Moss,” John summarises. An extensive peatland within Wilmslow, Cheshire. The landscape dates back nearly 20,000 years.

John explains the historical and cultural heritage of the soft, bouncy soil that’s underfoot here. “Historically, people who lived around the edge of the peatland were able to cut peat, dry and store it, then burn it either for cooking or for heating in the winter. Peat was a very important resource.”

Moss rooms

John points out several strips of grass-covered land, “the moss rooms.” These run from houses on the edge of the moss in toward the bog.

“These are very special,” John says. “One of the best examples of a moss room landscape in England, let alone Cheshire. Now, the establishment of the Lindow Moss Landscape Partnership with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund has enabled us to develop a proper landscape management program and to begin to conserve. That's very important.”

View of a Moss room: “They’re narrow,” explains John, “as people were only allowed to cut in towards the centre of the bog. Eventually, they privatised these moss rooms. They were used for agriculture, often for grazing animals, sometimes growing crops like corn.”

How else is the funding helping? “Through the Heritage Fund, we have a team: a project manager and a community projects officer. They're brilliant, and able to take forward this project, which up until now has been totally based on voluntary activity.”

Wild forest, wildlife

John emphasises that wildlife is another key aspect to the partnership’s work.

“Working with the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, we are looking at the wildlife habitats, identifying those areas that need special protection or need to be managed. The Heritage project is enabling us to document wildlife in the whole of this landscape.” For sure, Lindow Moss is teeming with birds, insects, flowers, trees, visible pockets of peat and pools of water. Pausing at a boggy zone, John points out a bunch of multi-stemmed trees. “That’s called an Alder Carr. The trees are growing almost in water. You can see how high the water table is from this stream. You can see the peat on the edge of it.”

An Alder Carr - these trees have naturally sprung up on peatland with 'the water table' beneath.

John crouches to show a handful of Sphagnum Moss – magical clumps of green fluff, it’s the key material of peat alongside water. John remarks, “It’s quite a slow process, but very significant.”

For peat’s sake

With such variety in view – dense woods, open grassy areas, streams, even some agricultural fields – it’s surprising to discover how much is hidden. “Where we are standing, it looks like a woodland on a bit of peat,” John comments. “But there's at least 3m of peat below our feet.”

So why are peatlands special? According to IUCN-UK : 70% of UK drinking water comes from upland dominated by peat; The UK is one of the world’s top ten countries in terms of peat (60% of our peatlands are in Scotland); And UK peatlands store 3 billion tonnes of carbon – that’s the same as all the forests of the UK, France and Germany combined. As John reflects, “This landscape really does need to be looked after.”

The partnership is doing just that, having consulted on Lindow Moss with Historic England. “The importance of conserving peat was stressed,” says John. “The only way this can be achieved is through a landscape scale partnership like this one funded by the Heritage Fund.”

A water pool, demonstrating how nature is recovering itself in this landscape

Big picture

“Peat is fossil carbon,” John sums up. “What we don't want to happen is for the peat to shrink, dry out and oxidize and for that carbon to be released back into the atmosphere. We want to try to keep the landscape as wet as possible. To hold onto the peat, to hold onto the carbon.”

In the middle of Lindow Moss a vast open space reveals where the landscape was scarred by commercial peat cutting for many decades. It looks like a perfect place to shoot a dystopian sci-fi film, yet John seems entirely optimistic. “Natural recovery is beginning to take place.”

Indeed, the pools of water are home to grasses and Sphagnum, as well as water voles, while bees, butterflies, birds are all around. “These are perfect conditions for restoration – there’s a realistic prospect of restoring this peat bog.”

Meanwhile, Lindow Moss is a captivating place for many visitors – on the day, several joggers and cyclists swoosh by, mums and toddlers are on an Easter egg hunt, elderly strollers natter and other people wind their way round an art trail. And of course there are dog walkers - like John himself whose dog “Keeper” has covered miles more ground during an epic heritage tour of Lindow Moss.