This section of Hatfield Moors is yet to develop the regenerative woodland that characterises older sections of the area of former commercial peat extraction (HSY 4409). Peat formation on Hatfield Moor dates to the later prehistoric period, as shown by the discovery of a late Neolithic track way leading north from Lindholme Island in 2004 (Chapman and Geary 2004), which points to a wet environment becoming established at that time. Flooding of the landscape will have produced the nutrient poor conditions conducive to the production of raised mire. This mire continued to develop until the post-medieval period and the drainage interventions of Cornelius Vermuyden. Hatfield Moor itself was enclosed for agricultural use in 1825 as a result of the Hatfield, Thorne, Stainforth and Sykehouse enclosure award (English 1985, 65 and Miller 1997, 73). The land was reclaimed by a combination of drainage, peat cutting, dry warping and settlement. Hunter writing in 1828 refers to "the attempts which have lately been made to raise corn on the surface of these moors" (p196). By 1851 the area shown within this polygon was depicted by the OS as marshy scrub with cultivated areas restricted to Lindholme Island, the area of Lindholme Grange Farm and the fringes of the former moor to the north and west. Peat cutting for horse litter amounted to 10,000 tonnes annually by 1903 although this industry declined from the 1920s onwards with the increase in motor transport. The peat industry began to dominate the moor again from 1963 onwards, when Fisons purchased the British Peat Moss Litter Company, with a consequent introduction of mechanised block cutting. During the late 1970s the introduction of the 'surface milling' technique allowed greater efficiency of operation resulting in the eventual reduction of the peat depth on the moor to less than 2.00 m (Van de Noort and Ellis 1997, 28-29). Following financial agreement between the UK government, English Nature and Levington's Horticulture (successor in title to Fisons), the majority of peat cutting at Hatfield ceased in 2004 - the site, now in the ownership of English Nature, is to be managed for public access and conservation as a National Nature Reserve. Significant legibility of mechanised peat extraction.