Chat Moss

Chat Moss, the largest bog in England, though its dimensions have been much lessened of late years by constant and improved drainage, is about seven miles west of Manchester. Parts of it are now solid, where twenty-five years ago horses employed in the works connected with the drainage had to wear plates of wood - a kind of snow-shoe - to keep them from sinking in. In 1829 George Stephenson, after long struggling in vain to carry his railway over the moss, hit upon the expedient of floating it upon a foundation of boughs and hurdles, cutting deep drains by the side, and in the centre forming beneath the line a drain composed of old tar barrels.