Holcombe Moor

The view north from the viaduct includes the southern end of Holcombe Moor with the monument of Peel Tower.

Sir Robert Peel

Peel Tower is one of two monuments in the Bury area that were erected in memory of Sir Robert Peel, who was Prime Minister between 1841 and 1846. He was also the founder of the modern Police Force and repealer of the Corn Laws. He was born in Bury in 1788.

Peel Tower was built in 1852 at a cost of £1,000. The tower is made using grit stone quarried from the very ground it stands on, without the permission of the landowner!

The area of Holcombe Moor where the Tower stands is high ground capped by a tough, erosion-resistant, sandstone bed which is well exposed (with abandoned quarries) at the summit.

The clays with boulders (known as boulder clays or tills) represent material brought and dumped by ice. Many of the contained boulders are of rock types common in this region but others are identical with rock types to be found in the Lake District and southern Scotland, indicating that ice flow was from north to south. The sands represent material reworked during warmer melt phases.

Superficial deposits formed since the last ice age are also to be found for example in sands and gravels on river terraces.

It is remarkable that the materials below the surface at Tottington indicate a geological history starting on the Equator with tropical swamps, then moving to our present latitude when ice could reach the region from the north. At present we are in a warm climatic phase but living with the prospect of future glaciations.

... Continue to follow the old railway north. (If you wish to explore the lower area around Island Lodge, you can take the pathway to the right just after you have moved off the viaduct. You will need to return to this point to continue.)