With hundreds of species of birds, mammals, insects and fish, Leighton Moss captivates its 160,000 visitors a year and features regularly on tv wildlife programmes, including BBC 2’s Autumnwatch.
Looking at the RSPB’s nature reserve today it's difficult to believe that less than 100 years ago its characteristic reedbeds and ponds just didn’t exist.
Back in the 1840s these 320 marshy acres at Silverdale, on the edge of Morecambe Bay, were all drained for farming. Right up to the First World War the land was ploughed for arable crops, and became known as ‘The Golden Valley’ - one of the best grain-producing areas in the North West of England.
The Victorian landowner credited with transforming the Moss from marshland to cornfields, was Richard Thomas Gillow, still known in the villages around the Moss as 'The Old Squire'.
His father - another Richard Gillow - had bought the Moss, and the rest of the Leighton Hall estate, in the 1820s.
Gillows of Lancaster was one of the most famous names in the manufacture of fine English furniture. But like many families who made their name in industry and commerce, the Gillows wanted to move into landed society. Father and son both found wives from long-established and well-connected families.
And when Richard Thomas Gillow inherited Leighton Hall, he devoted himself to the expansion and improvement of his estate.
Draining the Moss for farming was not a new idea. Previous owners had realised that if only the sea could be kept out and the surface water pushed off the Moss, its peat-rich soil would produce bumper crops.
In particular, there were large profits to be made from the cultivation of wheat and Squire Gillow set about his task in a methodical and energetic fashion.
His first step was to build a new embankment at the seaward end of the Moss to prevent high tides overwhelming his new fields. A contract from 1840 still held at the Hall shows how a team of about 20 local men was employed to build the sea defences. The men were originally offered two shillings and tuppence a day to work on the site -- but they held out for an extra sixpence!
Next week: More of the draining of the Moss.
l Andy Denwood's book 'Leighton Moss Ice Age to Present Day' is available at RSPB Leighton Moss and other local bookshops, price £7.99. More Leighton Moss history at http://denwoodpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/2014/
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