​This viewpoint has been created by landfilling with domestic waste. Tipping on this, the northernmost
of two landfills, finished at around 1990. The closed landfill was capped with clay and a thin layer of soil. Tree seed was then sprayed on hydraulically with an organic mulch to protect the germinating seeds. The woodland, together with its mown rides, is now managed as Newgate Nature Reserve by Cheshire East Council.
Looking south-east from here we see the wooded Alderley Edge in the middle distance. On a clear
day, some 12 miles away (19 km), is the distinctive gritstone peak of Shutlingsloe (506m), the
‘Cheshire Matterhorn’ and to the left of that is Shining Tor. Shutlingsloe features in the climax of Alan Garner’s wonderful tale of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.

Sitting close to the eastern border of Mobberley Parish & the northern edge of Lindow Moss, Rossmere is a man-made lake.
Towards the end of the last ice-age, around 10,500 years ago, as the ice retreated, it left behind several islands & peninsulas of sand amongst the wetland area that would later become know as Lindow Moss. Around 1500 A.D. Saltersley Hall was built on one such sand peninsula which was able to support the stone structure which the surrounding peat bog could not.
During the early 1950s, Saltersley Hall & the surrounding land was bought by the Croxall family, who, over the next two decades dug out the sand from the eastern side of their property for the building trade.This excavation left a large depression which was filled up from an underground spring & rainwater. Rossmere is now the home of the private Prince Albert Angling Society.

Since 1959, Saltersley Hall has been listed with Grade II protection by Historic England as a 17C
building, although it is generally considered to have earlier origins with a mediaeval room plan. It stood as a lonely but high-status house on a sand island - described by antiquarian Fletcher Moss in 1903 as “begirt …by the quaking bog”. The sandstone base is thought to have been quarried near Quarry Bank Mill. It may have been a staging post on the ancient salt-way between Cheshire and Derbyshire.

As well as being one of the oldest surviving buildings within Lindow Moss, Hollingee Farm is also of historic value to the local 'Quaker' movement. It is believed to have been built during the 1500s as a 'moated grange', the 'Manor House' or 'Domain House' of the Radcliffe family, originally from Ordsall, Salford, (although a new farm house was added in 1879).
However, in 1611 the house was sold to Randle, (Ralph), Blackshaw, a devout Quaker, whose son,
Randulph Randle Blackshaw, b. 1622, married Aliss Burgis in 1660. Randle senior passed away circa
1669 & the house passed to Randle & Aliss.
Due to the continual persecution of the Quakers, Randle sold Hollingee & he, his wife & 7 children
emigrated to 'The New World' from Liverpool on board the ship 'Submission' in 1682/1683, part of
William Penn's Pennsylvania Settler's Project.
Of geographical interest, the remains of the moat are still visible, both on the ground & OS Maps,
around the 2 most northerly buildings within in the farm grounds. Also, a 'sunken road' can be seen
exiting the farm in a south easterly direction & a continuation of this track crosses the footpath you are currently walking. If viewed on the map, this sunken road seems to line up with the end of Moor Lane near the new housing development, suggesting that in past times there was a direct route across the peat bog to the community of 'Stormy Point', where Cumber Lane, Moor Lane & Rotherwood meet.
The current owners, Roy & Norma Barker, have lived here for over 40 years and breed horses as well as farming sheep.

The Quaker Burial Ground on Graveyard Lane, marked by a rectangular set of walls, is a significant historical site reflecting the region's Quaker heritage. Established in the late 17th century, it served as avital place for Quakers to bury their deceased during a time when their religious practices were often conducted in secrecy due to persecution. The site had been abandoned and left to grow wild and had become almost inaccessible with brambles and tree roots, making routine maintenance and repair impossible. 

In the 17th century, Quakers in the Wilmslow, Mobberley and Morley areas faced religious persecution, compelling them to worship in private homes. In 1669, Thomas Janney purchased a 400-square-yard plot on Graveyard Lane from Edward Alcock and others. This plot was expanded in 1677 to 560 square yards. Over its approximately 200-year history, it is estimated that around 500 individuals were buried there, with records indicating 397 Quaker burials between 1650 and 1750.
 

More detailed information can be found in "Church in the Field: Mobberley Quaker Graveyard and Its History": A publication by the Wilmslow Historical Society, providing an in-depth look at the site's history.

The Plough & Flail was built at Paddock Hall probably in the mid 19th century. A favourite
destination for walkers and families serving drinks and food. Open daily from 12, the Plough & Flail serves traditional pub food, and caters for different dietary needs such as gluten free and vegan. A dog friendly pub.

Peat cutting, mainly as a source of fuel, has been important in the Cheshire lowlands for at least 800 years. In the medieval period people who lived alongside Lindow Moss (then known as Lindow Common) had a right to cut peat but they had to work in a defined strip or ‘moss room’. Beginning in the 18th century the peat workings were enclosed for private use for agriculture. The removal of commoners’ rights was often unpopular and here, in 1810, the local land agent wrote to Lord Stamford to say that ‘occupiers of cottages in and about Fulshaw near Wilmslow, collected together in a riotous manner and pulled down and destroyed fences of the new enclosures made by your lordship’s tenants’. By 1842 the tythe maps show many ‘intakes’ from the common lands but the pattern of the long thin moss rooms was captured by the new hedges. That can still be seen today where the former moss rooms make ideal horse paddocks. Lindow Moss has been described as the best example of a moss room landscape in Cheshire.

This cast iron manhole cover records the 1885 drainage scheme for the southern part of the once very extensive peatland landscape of Lindow Moss. In the 19th century in England local drainage boards, like the Wilmslow Board, were established to organise the collection of drainage rates and to manage water levels in their area. By this time traditional peat cutting in the ’moss rooms’ had come to an end and agricultural improvement was the order of the day. The imposing Hetlee Farm on Leigh Road dated 1907 is testament to the initial effectiveness of this drainage programme. However, drainage caused shrinkage and oxidation of the peatland soils releasing fossil carbon to the atmosphere in the process. A similar manhole cover at Lindow End now stands 70cm proud of the original soil surface.
Peat shrinkage brings the water table closer to the surface and undermines the effectiveness of land
drainage. The Lindow Moss Landscape Partnership is seeking to conserve the remaining peat deposits
by promoting sympathetic land management and maintaining a high water table.

Moss rooms are the distinctive narrow field patterns that are still evident around the edge of Lindow Moss. Long, narrow strips of land, these date from the Middle Ages when peat was being extracted principally for fuel. By 1777 the entire Lindow mossland area was shown on maps as Lindow Common, suggesting that there were commoners rights to turbary (peat cutting) across the moss. Small one storied cottages were erected on the moss as land was allowed for cultivation providing you could demonstrate that you lived there. Peat cutting, mainly as a source of fuel, has been important in the Cheshire lowlands for at least 800 years.
Beginning in the 18th century the peat workings were enclosed for private use for agriculture. The removal of commoners’ rights was often unpopular and here, in 1810, the local land agent wrote to Lord Stamford to say that ‘occupiers of cottages in and about Fulshaw near Wilmslow, collected together in a riotous manner and pulled down and destroyed fences of the new enclosures made by your lordship’s tenants’. By 1842 the tythe maps show many ‘intakes’ from the common lands but the pattern of the long thin moss rooms was captured by the new hedges. Lindow Moss has been described as the best example of a moss room landscape in Cheshire.

Joe Eckert (known locally as German Joe) was born in Heidelberg in 1924 and after signing up for the U-boat service, he served nine tours of duty. In May 1944, his U-boat was scuttled in the
Mediterranean and the entire crew was taken prisoner. He remained a prisoner of war in Mississippi until 1945 when he was transferred to Britain, to the POW camp at Mobberley.
Having met and married local girl Rene Dann, he remained in Mobberley and spent the rest of his his life on the edge of Lindow Moss at The Yews on Clay Lane, raising a family and farming cattle.
Although the house no longer exists, the area around here still retains evidence of Joe’s work,
expanding and working on his farm including constructing the building not far from this bench which bears his initials above the door.

On 1 August 1984, one of the peat cutters pulled a long object off the elevator at the peat depot on Lindow Moss, and realized it was a well preserved human foot with a ragged piece of skin attached. Rick Turner, the Cheshire County Archaeologist at the time, was called to undertake the excavation. 

Consisting of a torso and head, he is also known as Lindow II and a separate leg, found only 15m away (known as Lindow IV) may be part of the same body, severed by the peat-cutting machinery. Lindow Man was not the only person to have been buried on the bog: a human skull (Lindow I) and parts of a headless body (Lindow II) were also found on separate occasions. Lindow Man has been radiocarbon dated to the 2BCE-AD119, so he may have died during the turbulent events of the arrival of the Romans in the north of Britain. 

He has been analysed by many different archaeologists, including forensic and environmental specialists, led by Dr Ian Stead of the British Museum. We know that he was a well-fed adult male, of average height (around 1.73m tall) and aged between 26-45 years old. His hair and beard had been neatly trimmed and his nails showed no trace of intensive work shortly before his death. He was found naked apart from a small fox-fur armband, and he had eaten a slightly burned barley-based meal, either a griddle cake or thick pottage, along with fragments of hazlenuts and some traces of meat, shortly before his death. A small number of mistletoe grains were also found in his stomach but we do not know if these had been deliberately ingested, either as a medicine or poison. 

We do know that he died violently from a heavy blow to the top and back of the head. He was also garrotted with a tightly turned length of twisted animal sinew, which ultimately broke his neck, but traces of a cut across the throat and another potential stab wound to the chest suggest a number of people were involved and that this traumatic blood-loss was designed to hasten his death. Recent studies of the Lindow landscape suggest he was placed face-down in a shallow pool, at the deepest part of the raised bog, at a time when it was getting wetter. This would have been a challenging and difficult place to access, suggesting he was alive when taken out onto the bog. Yet we still do not know the reasons behind that death: judicial punishment, the offering of a sacrifice or even the deliberate giving up of his life to appeal to the gods at a time of crises, are all possible explanations. 

Commercial peat cutting on the last remaining peat bog at the heart of Lindow Moss, sometimes known as Saltersley Common, became more organised in the 1960s. Planning consents from that time permitted peat cutting up to 2042 and then, in the Wilmslow section, required back fill with inert waste and restoration to agriculture. Peat cutting intensified in 1997 when new owners introduced peat extraction by surface milling. However, in February 2019 Cheshire East Council granted consent to two interlinked planning applications, one for 14 houses on the former peat processing area adjoining Moor Lane (<2ha), and the second for an end to commercial peat extraction and comprehensive ecological
restoration of the remaining cutover peat bog (28 ha). The restoration scheme began in February 2022 and at that point the 1960s planning requirements fell away. The aim is to reestablish a functioning ‘raised bog’ over much of the area which will restore a scarce wildlife habitat which once again captures carbon from the atmosphere. Dams and peat bunds will be used to raise the water table and conditions for bog development are considered to be favourable. A restoration fund in the form of a Minerals Planning Bond will help to finance a 20-year aftercare
programme once the restoration scheme is completed. Landscape interpretation will celebrate the archaeology and cultural history of Lindow Moss in partnership with the local community.

Peat was dug by hand, sliced by a hay knife and dug out with a spade. Each piece was turned on its side and then stacked up to dry to form long banks of peat blocks. The peat was collected by a train pulled by a sideways sitting locomotive and taken to the depot on the corner of Newgate
and Rotherwood Road. The diesel engines are still in working order and can be seen at Apedale Museum (apedale.co.uk) and examples of the tracks can still be found on the Moss (awaiting Boardwalk from public track into Lindow Moss (Compartment 10). From 2003, peat cutting
became mechanised using large diggers, causing considerable environmental damage. (Source: Hyde and Pemberton)

The Black Lake (Llyn-Dhu in Welsh) is described in T.A. Coward’s Picturesque Cheshire (1926) as “a
breezy, desirable spot, for sooner or later residential Wilmslow will reach here and this lung be appreciated. (It is) …a heathy waste where reptiles and insects sun themselves and where the nightjar churrs and the owl beats his nightly round.” The lake also features in Alan Garner’s Wierdstone of Brisingamen (1960) where Llyn Dhu is described as “garlanded with mosses and mean dwellings” and where “men thought to drain that land and live there, but the spirit of the place entered them, and their houses were built desolate and without cheer”. Over many decades the lake was used for sailing model boats, canoeing, fishing and ice-skating.
Since being drained and re-lined with a layer of mineral clay in 1986, it has been fenced off and mainly preserved for birds and wildflowers to thrive.

(1897) marking the acquisition of the Common for residents of Wilmslow. Racecourse Road, surrounding Lindow Common, was once a mile length racecourse created by the gypsies who were regular visitors to Lindow. Here, they showed off their horses and traded them; there was even a wooden stand for spectators at the finishing line. By the 1890’s the local council took a dim view of these activities and wanted to take control: so Alderman John Royle purchased the land and presented it to the people of Wilmslow. The Memorial Stone commemorates this gift, which was timed to coincide with the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, when 5-6,000 people are reported to have enjoyed brass bands, songs, tea and fireworks.
References: Lindow and the Bog Warriors, Hyde and Pemberton 2002; Portrait of Wilmslow, H
Hodson, 1974