Little Peat, Tiddy Mun and the folklore of a misty moor

Angus Townley, trustee of Crowle Peatland Railway, in the cab of Little Peat

For 20 years, Crowle Moor in north Lincolnshire has been part of a national nature reserve. But echoes of its industrial and cultural past remain – from abandoned railway engines to tales of boggarts and spirits – and are set to be celebrated this Halloween.

This once vast complex of moor, bog and fen surrounding the head of the Humber estuary has been shaped by centuries of peat extraction stretching back to medieval times.

By the Victorian era, it had large peat works serving big cities with animal litter for the huge population of working horses.

Locomotives were used to pull wagons full of peat to a processing plant – and today some of them still cross the misty moors.

"We knew one of the locos was still on the moors and it had been abandoned for about 25 years – that's the loco that we call Little Peat, " says Angus Townley, trustee of Crowle Peatland Railway.

He and a handful of fellow enthusiasts formed the group to preserve the moors' railway heritage in 2013 following the decline of the works.

"There was a group of four of us sat round a pub and we were saying, it's great we've got this national nature reserve, but if we're not careful we'll forget about the social history," he recalls.

The sprite on the moors

They decided to restore Little Peat, a Simplex locomotive that served the works, and the project gathered pace from there.

"Here we are now with six locomotives in the shed and one Lisbon tram," adds Angus.

Another aspect that interests him is the folklore of the moors – and in particular the legend of the Tiddy Mun.

"[It] is a sprite that used to live on the moors, he was about the height of a small child and had a long, white beard," he says.

"When they drained the isle in the 17th Century there was a lot of trouble with animals dying and children becoming sick and it was all put down to the Tiddy Mun.

"To appease him, the locals would pour bowls of water on to the ground and tell him to undo his spell."

This Halloween, the Crowle Peatland Railway will bring these memories together for a ghost train event, as Angus has been telling the latest episode of the Secret Lincolnshire podcast.

Volunteers maintain six locomotives and a tram

Today, the Humberhead Peatlands nature reserve, which also includes Goole, Thorne and Hatfield Moors, is described by Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust as one of the richest areas of lowland peat vegetation in the north of England.

The trust began managing a small parcel of land on Crowle Moor in 1971 amid rising concerns about the damage peat working was doing to the environment.

Over the next three decades, this protected area of land was expanded and peat working declined, until the national nature reserve was officially opened in 2005.

It is home to more than 30 breeding birds, as well as grass snakes and adders, according to the trust.

In the first half of the 20th century, horses were used to pull peat wagons across the moors. But increasingly after World War Two, locomotives were employed.

When peat working ended, much of the railway was scrapped, but Little Peat survived and was eventually donated to the Crowle Peatland Railway.

Today, a band of volunteers repair and run the trains from an engine shed at their base on the moors, about a mile outside the town of Crowle. Among them is Anne-Marie, who is learning to drive the locomotives along with a friend.

"We're really enjoying it," she says. "I became a volunteer last October and one of the gentlemen said, would you like to learn to drive and do guarding and everything else? We jumped at the chance."

The railway welcomes visitors on open days throughout the year and will stage Halloween events on 25 and 26 October.

"The original idea was to restore Little Peat and have the one loco and we probably thought on a very short piece of track," adds Angus.

"Now, here we are and we've got visitors every month."

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