This was our first visit to this site since last September. Surprisingly the trench we left open has survived quite well and it didn’t take us long to clear it of mud and rotting leaves (we didn’t even have to pump the water out). More detail in our Rectory Project Archive –Area 1).
Sunday 19th May. Eventually the weather cleared enough for us to make a return visit to the Pingot Valley (myself, Mary, Mark and Andy). Eric had previously managed to make contact with the Winstanley Estate warden who said we were OK to work on the site. He agreed we could survey and record features but if we wanted to excavate we would need to get permission from Tim Banks who is still the land owner. For more details of our visit, select the Pingot Valley tab.
Last Sunday a team of 4 from our Society began to survey this site which lies to east of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Higher Ince. We have been asked to get involved with this project by Liz Vango-Smith, of the Wild Life Trust. The intention is to see if we can identify and record features of the old iron works that may have have survived recent landscaping – for more details see the Kirkless tab.
Our attention was drawn to this site last year by Derek Winstanley who now lives in the US. He had noticed on a recent visit that there were remains of the old lime kiln marked on the 6 inch OS map of 1849. I’d looked at the site last year but other commitments at the time meant that it’s only now that perhaps we’re able to spend some time on it (see new ‘Pingot Valley‘ tab for details).
On a misty morning Last Sunday Andy Wilock and I visited a site on the edge of Chat Moss near Glazebury. We were invited there by Marlene Nolan of Culcheth History Society who had spotted the site while field walking. It seemed to her to be some kind of defensive earth work lying at a strategic point on the banks of the River Glaze. You may be wondering why she asked us to look at this site so far away from Wigan – but, surprising as it may seem, quite a lot of Chat Moss does lie within the Wigan Metro Borough.
The site is located north of Moss Lane which branches off Hey Shoot Lane about 200m east of the River Glaze near the Raven Pub. It’s surrounded on three sides by a large bank with a ditch on the south side. The interior is flooded up to a point where a cut in the bank allows the water to escape. 
Judging from the maturity of the trees we perceive the site must be at least a 200 or 300 years old but a quick check on the 6″ OS map of 1846 gives no indication of its origin. The history of the area suggests a possible Civil War connection as apparently there was a large skirmish in the vicinity. Another slight possibility is that it could be much older as an Iron Age site had been discovered a few years ago only about one mile south of this one.
More likely however it’s the product of some pre-Victorian industrial activity such as sand, stone or clay extraction – a trench across the embankment may give the answer but whether we’d get permission is another thing.
Managed to get down to the Rectory this Sunday to carry out necessary maintenance (mainly pumping out the water) and see if we could make some progress on the new features we discovered last time – including something strange lurking at the bottom of the deep trench (if you want to see what we found check out the Rectory Project Archive – Area 1).