Whixall & Fenn’s Mosses Circular Walk with Kids – Family-Friendly Peatland Trail (Shropshire & Flintshire)

An educational walk on the Midlands Peatlands

Saturday 24th August 2024. Today, my husband had found a local walk on his All Trails app which turned out to be a National Nature Reserve, and flits back and forth over the England/Wales border. It’s amazing what’s on your doorstep that you don’t know about until you start looking! Our walk turned into a really interesting ‘field trip’, but I hadn’t realised this when we first started the walk…

Drawbridge Duties

The start of today’s walk was at Morris’ Bridge carpark, a little carpark situated right by the Shropshire Union Canal (Llangollen Branch). To get to it, you had to drive over a quaint little drawbridge. After changing into our boots and grabbing our bags, the first mission was a family photo on said bridge… When someone shouted over to us…

A passing single chap in a narrowboat was having difficulty. He needed to raise the bridge to get through, but the pivot/raising mechanism was on the opposite side to the only towpath, meaning he wouldn’t actually be able to get back to his boat to sail it through once the bridge was opened! A bit of an oversight from the engineer who designed the bridge perhaps, or is there a reason that had to go on that side? Either way, it was a challenge that my two boys were only too eager to assist with, and they excitedly grabbed the key off the chap and took to raising the drawbridge.

With the unexpected challenge now completed, we were free to begin our walk! At lunch, only an hour prior to our walk, we were miserably watching very heavy rain batter our windows. We packed our waterproofs and made a dash to the car. Now it was glorious sunshine, albeit still quite cool, but it was the most perfect weather for a walk.

The first part of the walk heads up the Shropshire Union Canal (Llangollen Branch) where it eventually meets with Ellesmere Canal (Prees Branch) and a beautiful tiny cottage overlooks the meeting place of the two canals.

A Mammoth Discovery

Just a little further up we see a signpost with a sign for ‘Mammoth Tower – 180m’. We had no idea what it meant and presumed it was just a funny name for an old, tall tower in the area. How wrong we were!

Mammoth Tower actually turned out to be part of a small detour that educated you about the Peatland in the area. I had no idea such areas existed in England and always associated them with Scotland, so I had a real education over the next ten to fifteen minutes!

Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses are part of the Marches Mosses, and is the third largest area of lowland-raised peatbog in the UK. I didn’t actually realise any of this when we planned today’s walk! What a lovely surprise!

After reading all the signs we head up to Mammoth Tower, which rewards you with a beautiful view of the surrounding area, telling you more about the area, from the Mammoths that used to roam these very fields, to the unexploded World War Two bombs that are also within the Peatland. Somewhere.

Back on the canal we enjoyed discovering that we were walking below the waterline, as thick steel plates supported the sides and held in the water. This fascinated the boys who spent several minutes measuring the depth with fallen branches?

Eventually we had to come off and head through the Peatland to get to the disused railway line. This was a lovely part of the walk, approximately a mile long, and it reminded me a lot of my childhood and walks on Exmoor. Lots of Heather and very barren, yet still so beautiful. Peat is also wonderful to walk on, it’s soft and bouncy, very similar to the squishy flooring you get in some modern playgrounds! It was important to stick to the walkways here, there were lots of well hidden waterways and boggy areas – you wouldn’t want to let the children just run wild in this section!

A disused railway line

After a short time we were met with clear signs of the approaching disused railway line – big old metal water and coal towers, and the skeleton of an old engine shed loomed through the trees. Other than the building at this end, I didn’t notice anything else that would have given this away as being an old railway line.

Nature has truly taken over, bar the gravelled track, and the shrubs and trees up the edges were home to at least 4 different species of butterflies (that we could see!), and dragon flies too.

The route was perfectly straight, and it was quite amazing to see so far in each direction down the same path!

It was around a mile and a half of straight line walking along the disused railway track before we came across any more footpaths. It was here, where we were due to turn right into some woodland, that I finally found an information board with some leaflets in! All the ones we’d previously passed were empty and I grabbed one to see if there was a map, and read up more on the area. I was excited to find there was a map in the leaflet, and it clearly shows all the different footpaths available, whether you’re looking for a short or a long walk! There’s also lots of information on the wildlife, butterflies and insects, the available walks, and the history and conservation efforts on the area in there too.

Don’t go off the beaten track!

As we approached the final section, we headed into Fenns wood. More woodland! Less than 2 months ago I started this blog to try and get us out more as a family, walking, biking, anything outdoors and free (or cheap!), and more than anything I wanted to walk in woodlands. Since turning the idea into a reality, I’ve been blessed with so many different woodland walks, I’m truly in my element! Turns out there’s more woodland out there than I realised! Anyway, I digress… This woodland had interesting sections in it, with a sign that read ‘Name’s Run‘ – at the time we wondered if they were mountain bike runs…

… Turns out they’re actually routes for the beaters when the shooting is going on 😅 (husband googled it once home!). So, don’t head into those! Fortunately the boys were far too engrossed with all the house bricks in the soil and the large mushrooms to want to explore anything off the beaten path!

The woodland section was around a mile long, and as we left the woods we walked through a tiny little village/street, before getting back to the canal again!

This last section wasn’t brilliant to walk along. There were many parts that were bogged down by water seeping from the canal, and one section was more than ankle deep, more than a large stride wide, and very slippery. On the plus side, as I was helping the youngest across, I slipped off a random cement bag (that I think had been placed to aid passing), my foot slipped into the water, andI discovered my walking boots were as advertised, and fully waterproof 😅 What a relief!

Geocache Time

I’ve noticed just recently that I’m getting so engrossed in the walks that I keep forgetting to check for geocaches en route! Fortunately the only one on today’s route was back at the drawbridge, but try as we may, we couldn’t find anything. The app indicates that the last 2 finds before us were also a bust, so we admitted defeat and headed back to the car.

Geocaches found: 0/1

Family Feedback on the Whixall and Fenn’s Mosses Circular

Though we had walked the entire perimeter of the area, the Whixall and Fenn’s Mosses Circular actually encompasses several much shorter walks, so I’m confident that this would be a great place to bring children of any age. Our perimeter walk was not technically challenging at all. It was very flat and easy to walk, with the boys surpassing their furthest walk of 5.7 miles to today’s 6.9 miles – with no complaints of tiredness or the famous ‘are we nearly there yet’. 😅

If you only do one bit, I’d recommend any walk that gets you going past Mammoth Tower. It’s so full of interesting facts and information, and our children enjoyed the tower. In fact, when I asked them what their favourite part of the walk was, both mentioned this part of the walk. My 10 year old was really intrigued at the fact that Mammoths used to roam the area (and mentioned it several times on the walk!), and my more destructive 8 year old was fascinated that there were unexploded World War bombs right by the walk! (Just to clarify, I’m pretty sure they’re a safe distance away 😅)

We did this walk which was 7 miles and was our biggest walk. We walked over peat which was so nice and soft to walk on. We also went up this 10 meter tall wooden thing and mammoths used to be there and there were unexploded WW2 bombs and brambly bushes.

S, 10 years old.

On Saturday we had a walk and I think we did 6.9 miles and we also saw a disused railway line and WORLD WAR 2 BOMBS!

C, 8 years old.

One thing to consider is the weather. Being Peatland it’ll likely be quite boggy on wetter days, though I’m sure the disused railway section would be fine to use. Also bear in mind the last section of canal was pretty bad, and it’s been quite dry prior to this walk, so make sure to wear appropriate footwear. If you walk this the way we did, it is the last part, so at least you’re just a short distance from the car park if you do get wet! Bring towels and spare socks/shoes, and the worst case is you can dry off and change back at the car. Talking of the carpark, it closes at dusk, so plan your walk accordingly, especially in winter when it gets dark earlier.

Overall, it’s a fantastic, educational and pretty walk that I’d recommend to walkers of all ages, and I don’t doubt that we will come back!

TOTAL MILES: 6.91 | TOTAL TIME: 3h (2h35 Moving Time)