Pestfurlong Hill

A walk this morning along Gorse Covert Mounds, this is the highest point. Mixed broadleaf woodland, ponds and meadows/moss, bounded on two sides by the M62 motorway and a slip road leading to it, and elsewhere by housing. It is managed by the Woodland Trust. Nothing extraordinary about any of that, except …….

In 1939 the whole area was taken over and drained, and the Risley Royal Ordnance factory was built. There were over a thousand buildings, with 30,000 people (largely women) working there over the course of the war filling millions of bombs and shells. Away from the cities, and often covered by mists at night, it was less of a target for night-time bombing raids. The work here must have been dirty and dangerous. In the 1960’s it was all demolished, and waste material was used to create these elevated mounds. These were landscaped in the 1970’s, and formed part of a network of woodlands and green spaces in the new neighbourhood of Birchwood.

The view towards Manchester City centre is now concealed by the vegetation. I just wish that people would take their used Orange Fanta cans home, but that’s something you see everywhere.