Glasson Moss
Glasson Moss is a wetland paradise at the heart of the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
It is one of the three sites which form the South Solway Mosses National Nature Reserve, alongside Bowness Common and Wedholme Flow.
This is a place where peat bogs have accumulated over centuries. In some places the peat can be 10 metres thick – with the oldest parts formed more than 8000 years ago.
This area suffered badly from peat extraction for the horticultural industry but, thanks to a very successful restoration project, it is now recovering well. Today, it offers the opportunity to experience one of the best examples of a healthy, wet, growing bog on the Solway Coast. You can explore this wetland paradise with this new set of trails and boardwalks, and a great viewing tower means you can see the raised mires from above too.
Local plant life includes a range of sphagnum species, hare’s-tail cotton grass, bog rosemary, cranberry, and cross-leaved heath, as well as all native species of sundew.
Loads of breeding birds can be found here too. Watch out for sparrowhawk, curlew, snipe, sedge and grasshopper warblers. Invertebrates found include large heath butterfly, bog bush cricket and banded demoiselle dragonfly.
If you stick to the boardwalks you won’t need your Wellington boots, but beware if you venture on to the bog itself. It’s always wet and muddy.
Facilities
- Free parking
- Disabled access
- Viewing tower
- Trails
- Boardwalks
- Information boards
- Picnic areas
Did you know…?
Healthy bogs, like the restored areas of Glasson Moss, contain more than 95% water and store more climate change-causing carbon than an equivalent area of rain forest.
Look for…
The deep steep-sided water-filled drains which remain from before restoration work began –please don’t fall in, they can be very deep.
Getting here…
Glasson Moss is north of the B5307, near the villages of Glasson, Whitrigg and Bowness-on-Solway.
There is a small car park at the northern access point accessed via a track, or parking in a large lay-by at the southern access point, with limited lay-by parking at the western access point.
