Kersal Moor, 2007
Wikimedia Commons
Kersal Moor is an 8-hectare (20 acres) site of biological importance and Local Nature Reserve
Statutory designation allowing principal local authorities to protect areas containing wildlife or geological features of particular local interest. in Kersal, Greater Manchester, owned and managed by Salford City Council.[1][2]
It was the site of the first Manchester Racecourse, and one of the earliest golf courses to be built outside Scotland. And from 1777 until 1811 it hosted at least 35 nude male races, allowing ladies the opportunity to examine the form of their potential partners.[3]
Kersal Moor is one of the many fluvioglacial ridges that formed along the Irwell Valley during the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age, leaving behind a mixture of sand and gravel.[4][5] The main habitats are acidic grassland and lowland heath.[6]
History
The name Kersal, Caersael or Keres-al is first recorded in the 12th century. It has been translated as “a wood of elder in a boggy place” and “a heath in the bend of a river”. Flint scrapers, knives and other materials associated with Neolithic humans have been discovered on the moor. Cluniac monks, an order of the Benedictine’s, were granted rights to the moor by King Stephen in 1142.[7] The monks founded a priory on the site of the present-day Kersal Cell, which was dissolved in 1538; the monastic buildings appear to have been removed between 1755 and 1795.[8]
Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII, the moor passed through the ownership of several wealthy families, ending up with the Clowes family. It was acquired by Salford Council in 1888, “to be conserved in its rural state”.[9]
As one of the largest open spaces near Manchester, Kersal Moor has a history of use for army manoeuvres and large public gatherings. In 1848 it was used as an encampment for the East Norfolk Regiment as part of an increased military presence in Lancashire, occasioned by the unrest caused by Chartist agitation.[10] An 1838 Chartist meeting on the moor had been the largest political event of the 19th century, with an attendance estimated at 30,000 (The Manchester Guardian) to 300,000 (The Morning Advertiser)}.[11]
From 1687 Kersal Moor was the site of the Manchester Race Course, which hosted its first official race on 2 May that year.[12] Horse racing continued on the moor until 1847, when the Manchester Racecourse Committee’s lease ran out and was not renewed.[13]
Flora and fauna
Flora
The present-day ring of trees was planted by Salford Council, but the centre of the moor is maintained as an open space.[14] The varied mix of trees includes common alder (Alnus glutinosa), silver birch (Betula verrucosa), sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), oak (Quercus robur), ash (Fraxinius excelsior) and beech (Fagus sylvatica). Mosses include Polytrichum juniperinum and Polytrichum piliferum.[15]
Fauna
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In 1829 an amateur insect collector named Robert Cribb collected a series of about fifty small yellow and brown moths from a rotting alder on the moor. These turned out to be a previously unknown species of moth, but they were mistakenly attributed to a friend of Cribb’s, the collector R. Wood, who had asked the entomologist John Curtis to identify them. Known as the Manchester moth, they were classified as Pancalia woodiella (today Euclemensia woodiella) in Wood’s honour.[16]
No other examples having been found, the moth is now believed to be extinct. Only three specimens remain, one of them held by the Manchester Museum.[16]