Thorne and Hatfield Moors form the largest area of lowland raised peat bog in the United Kingdom. They are situated in South Yorkshire, to the north-east and east of Doncaster near the town of Thorne, and are part of Hatfield Chase. They had been used for small-scale extraction of peat for fuel from medieval times, and probably much earlier, but commercial extraction of the peat for animal bedding began in the 1880s. The peat was cut on the moors and, once it had dried, transported to several works on 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge tramways, always called trams locally. The wagons were pulled by horses to works at Creyke's Siding, Moorends, Medge Hall, Swinefleet and Hatfield. There was also a network of canals supplying the Moorends Works.
The industry suffered a downturn between the two world wars, as working horses were replaced by lorries and peat demand dropped, but after the Second World War peat was used by the horticultural industry in increasing volumes, and harvesting expanded again. From 1947, experiments were made with locomotives on the tramways, and they soon replaced horses. A total of 23 had worked on the system by the time it was closed down. The extraction process was mechanised in the 1960s, with the introduction of machines that could cut and stack the peat turves. In 1981 mechanical loading of the turves into the trains was introduced. Surface milling of the peat was introduced in 1985, which completely stripped the surface of large areas of the moors.
Some environmental bodies considered the moors to be worthless, but tireless campaigning by William Bunting after the Second World War, culminating in direct action by a group known as Bunting's Beavers in 1972, resulted in a change of policy. The nature of the moor habitat has gradually been recognised as an ecological resource. From 1971 the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has managed a small area of Crowle Moor for conservation, and the Nature Conservancy Council bought another small area in 1985. A major change occurred in 1994, when Fisons company gave English Nature 2,340 acres (946 ha) of moorland, although they retained the right to continue extracting peat on some of it. By 2002, Scotts owned the cutting rights but most cutting of peat effectively ended in 2001, since the government buy-out in 2002 of the extraction rights from Scotts occurred before the cutting season had begun. Removal of peat stockpiled on the moors continued into 2006. Since then the moors have been managed as a National Nature Reserve by Natural England. Scotts still have a works at Hatfield, which processes imported peat.
In addition to the peat industry Hatfield Moor has been the site of part of the UK gas industry since 1981. Hatfield Moor gas field was discovered accidentally while drilling for oil, and a major blow-out and fire occurred. Gas was extracted from 1986 to 1998, and when the gas field became depleted, it was reused to become the first onshore gas storage facility of its kind in Britain.
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