Meathop Moss Nature Reserve

Meathop Moss Nature Reserve is a prized peatland, recognised for its important species diversity.

In recent times it has been slightly overshadowed by a larger near neighbour in Foulshaw Moss.

However, this shouldn’t distract from its importance and history.

Meathop Moss started forming 5000 years ago. Following the last ice age most of the low lying area would have been a huge wetland extending for 7 miles.

It was such difficult terrain to cross that people had to use an alternative and equally treacherous route across the sands to traverse this corner of Morecambe Bay.

Much of this huge wetland has since been lost to agriculture and peat cutting.

As a result, Meathop Moss Nature Reserve is now one of the few isolated fragments of this wildlife-rich habitat.

Moreover, it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

In 2020, the reserve saw a milestone clocking up 100 years as a nature reserve.

Consequently, Meathop Moss is known as a ‘Rothschild Reserve’.

It is managed and maintained by Cumbria Wildlife Trust.

It is one of 284 places on a list produced by Charles Rothschild in 1915, which identified sites as ‘worthy of preservation’.