Peat Bogs and Heather Moors

I had no idea that the peat people gathered for burning was made from heather and grass that had decomposed for thousands of years. Nor did I realize that people still heated their homes with it and burned it in their fireplaces.

At this time of year the heather in the moors looks dried and dark brown, but it is actually a very dark green plant, which will blossom into multitudes of purple flowers in July and continue on until the fall. Hedges of yellow flowers—gorse—outline the patches of heather, tempting one to go farther afield. However, one would need their wellies (rubber boots) to step very far. The area is quite boggy for the first couple of feet, but below that it becomes more solid, though one wouldn’t want to become stuck in it.

Peat diggers have been known to find elk bones and such, including those of human remains. The acid in the peat is a great preservative. Sometimes amazing historic information about people who have lived many thousands of years before has been gathered in these sites.

Those cultivating peat now do it in strips to encourage areas to continuing growing with the same plant materials. Often where peat is dug, grass is the only thing that comes back, but the heather is needed to give it the texture and rich smell. When the peat burns it gives off an oak-ey, whiskey barrel aroma. When the fields of heather grow they smell like honey.

The heather moors in this area hide peat that delves down six or seven feet to that which is at least 120,000 years old. (In the Western Isles, apparently the bottom of a peat bog does down ten feet.) The peat bricks are dug out by hand with painstaking labour and left to dry until they’re solid and hard. Then they are gathered and stacked at the homes where they are used to keep people warm for the winter. The heat potential is substantial, second only to that of coal, which is much older and pressurized.

The heather and grass moors provide cover for ground nesters like grouse, lapwings, oyster catchers and pewits. Curlews and sea gulls come in from the sea, which is only a dozen or so miles away. Hawks and foxes hunt there for voles, and mice and shrews. Altogether, there is a fascinating ecological community contained in the peat bogs and heather moors.