Wybunbury Moss is a National Nature Reserve (NNR) and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) near the village of

Wybunbury Wybunbury is a village (at ) and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The village lies 3¼ miles to the south east of Nantwich and 3¾ miles to the south of Crewe. The parish al ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England. It is a raised lowland bog, and a rare British example of a schwingmoor and a 'subsidence mire' (only two other British examples of the latter exist: Brookhouse Moss SSSI between

Congleton Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The town is by the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 26,482. Top ...

and

Sandbach Sandbach (pronounced ) is the name of a historic market town and a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements: Sandbach itself as the largest, Elworth, Ettiley Heath a ...

, also in Cheshire, and Chartley Moss NNR in

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

). The site was first notified as an SSSI in 1951, and designated as an NNR in 1955, with further acquisitions added to the protected area in 1957 and 2009. It is owned and managed by

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

Habitat and species

The most important part of the site is a central schwingmoor, a peat bog, in places only a metre thick, floating on a water-filled basin over deep. This may have occurred because of subsidence of salt-bearing rocks below the site, also the cause of undermining of the nearby

Wybunbury Tower Wybunbury is a village (at ) and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The village lies 3¼ miles to the south east of Nantwich and 3¾ miles to the south ...

, which leans from the vertical and has required underpinning. The floating part of the bog is dominated by ''

Sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, peat moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store wa ...

'' mosses and common cotton-grass, with

cranberry Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...

cross-leaved heath ''Erica tetralix'', the cross-leaved heath, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to western Europe, from southern Portugal to central Norway, as well as a number of boggy regions further from the coast in Central Europe ...

and

round-leaved sundew ''Drosera rotundifolia'', the round-leaved sundew, roundleaf sundew, or common sundew, is a carnivorous species of flowering plant that grows in bogs, marshes and fens. One of the most widespread sundew species, it has a circumboreal distribution ...

also present. The reserve is important for its invertebrates, which include 95% of the British population of the ten-spotted pot beetle, '' Cryptocephalus decemmaculatus''.

Access

There are no public rights of way within the nature reserve, but a permitted wildlife walk leaves a public footpath north of Wybunbury Tower, running west over boardwalks towards the centre of the reserve, before heading north through woodland to rejoin the footpath network south of Cockshades Farm. The central, wettest part of the moss is not publicly accessible for safety and conservation reasons and can only be visited by permit-holders or by arrangement with Natural England.

Folklore

The Moss is the setting for the children's book ''Nellie Longarms Will Get You... If You Don't Watch Out'', by John Bailey and Rose Quigley. In English folklore, the moss is also said to be the home to a headless horseman and ' Ginny Greenteeth'.

References

National nature reserves in England Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cheshire {{Cheshire-geo-stub

Habitat and species

Access

Folklore

See also

References