Chat Moss along with Risley Moss and Holcroft Moss, is also a European Union designated Special Area of Conservation, known as Manchester Mosses. The major habitats in the moss are bog, heathland, woodland and acidic grassland, subject to varying degrees of wetness depending on the local drainage. The remaining areas of bog are dominated by common cottongrass "Eriophorum angustifolium" and hare's-tail cottongrass "E. vaginatum". Bog mosses are more scarce, but "Sphagnum cuspidatum", "S. recurvum", "S. tenellum", "S. fimbriatum" and "S. subnitens" occur in patches. As the peat has become drier, areas have been taken over by purple moor grass "Molinia caerulea" and
Tom Edwards-Moss Tom Edwards-Moss Tom Cottingham Edwards-Moss, (7 April 1855 – 16 December 1893), was a British amateur oarsman who rowed in the Boat Race four times and twice won the Diamond Challenge Sculls, and a Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892. Edwards-Moss was the second son of Sir Thomas Edwards-Moss, Baronet of Otterspool, Aigburth, near Liverpool and Amy Charlotte Edwards. His grandfather was John Moss, founder of what later became the North-Western Bank, and his father had assumed the surname Edwards-Moss on marriage. Edwards-Moss was educated at Eton College and Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating