Peat Digging

Originally everyone in the village had a strip of peat to dig for fuel, as part of their ancient rights and customs under the manor of Witherslack. The Enclosure Award (1829) shows on the map where every peat face, or banking as it was known, belonging to each household could be found.

With the introduction of coal, it has been abandoned by almost everyone, except for the few farmers who still use it. One such person is Jim Wet ton, whose father was gamekeeper/woodsman for 51 years. Jim still cuts 6,000 or 7,000 peat’s to last him through the winter. There are three grades of peat. The first is grey peat, which is taken off the top to get at the black peat, which is the best. Up to two feet of the surface is cleared away before the peat spade is put to work. (1) This is 14 inches long and 5 inches wide at the end. The peat’s are cut in spring, depending on the weather. The mark of a good peat cutter are the neat rows that are left in the peat.

The peat’s are then placed on to a traditional peat barrow, which has a broad front wheel so that it does not sink into the soft peaty ground when wheeled away. They are put out to dry on higher ground for three or four weeks they are turned and put into low walls, known as ‘windrows’ (2) for further drying and then put into peat sheds. The peat barrow holds 50 wet peat’s and 100 peat’s when they are dried out, thus showing how much moisture is lost in the process.

A peat fire is a long burning one, as peat’s are put on intermittently throughout the day and banked up at night with ash from the bottom of the fire, so that it will be in the next day, and so it goes on. Toast is said to be delicious when made against a peat fire.

In 1946 the Witherslack Peat Company was formed, as natural fuel (coal) became critical and a large number of men were employed in cutting the peat by traditional methods, and was put out to dry on army bedsteads. This peat was not the best sort, it was brown, not black, and it weighed very light. There was no-one who was experienced in this work (Jim Wetton was out in the North African desert) and it was not very successful and closed after three years, and quite a sum of money was lost.

1. 'Cumbria' 1981 p400 w. R. Mitchell 2. Ibid