Nature Conservation Lewisham

Get involved in Lewisham's parks and nature reserves


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New Cross Gate Cutting Open Day

Saturday 26th August 2017 – 1:00pm – 4:00pm

Come and explore this beautiful nature reserve which is usually closed to the public.

New Cross Gate Cutting is a secluded area of woodland with small grassy glades, set on the broad slopes of a deep railway cutting, which supports 170 species of flowering plants.

The reserve is predominantly oak woodland with open glades of neutral and acid grassland in which reeds and tall herbs grow. Some flowers are locally rare, and the site contributes to one of London’s most important railway cuttings for wildlife, stretching southwards to Forest Hill.

The cutting was dug in 1838-39 and still bears the legacy of once being part of the old Great North Wood, and at times the route of the Croydon Canal, brickworks, and wartime allotments.

Venue location

New Cross Gate Cutting,
Vesta Road Entrance,
London,
SE4 2NR


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Great North Wood Walk – Saturday 12 August, 12pm-4pm

2016_04_11 Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Wood ©Daniel Greenwood

Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Wood ©Daniel Greenwood

A walk of 6 green miles through the remnants of the Great North Wood

This is the annual Great North Wood walk in  partnership with London Wildlife Trust, the Friends of One Tree Hill, and The Conservation Volunteers.

The walk will is six miles long and will begin at One Tree Hill, passing over the hill down to Brenchley Gardens, Wood Vale, Cox’s Walk, Sydenham Hill Wood, Dulwich Wood, Dulwich Upper Wood and finally to Crystal Palace Park, finishing at the station.

The Great North Wood is an ancient landscape of woods and commons which has remnants in the wildwood that colonised after the Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago. Though London has been much developed and altered by human industry and settlement, large tracts of the Great North Wood’s ancient woodland still remains, namely in Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Woods.

This is a walk of approximately six miles, taking around 3-4 hours with regular pauses along the way to talk about the wildlife and history of each place. Please wear walking boots, bring water, sun hat and sun cream if needed, and clothing suitable for the conditions.

Venue location

Meet at the Friends of One Tree Hill notice board next to the temple, near to the junction of Hengrave Road and Honor Oak Park,
One Tree Hill,
Southwark,
Greater London,
SE23

Contact:  Daniel Greenwood

Tel: 07734 599 728  Email: dgreenwood@wildlondon.org.uk


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Come on an Outfall Safari and help us raise awareness about river pollution!

Outfall Safari

Following the successful first year running the Riverfly monitoring scheme on the Ravensbourne Catchment, we’re offering you another opportunity to help identify pollution hotspots and raise public awareness around drainage misconnections that can harm our rivers.

The waterways of the Ravensbourne, Quaggy and Pool join the Thames at Deptford and like all London’s rivers, they can be polluted by chemicals from detergents and by sewage, due to misconnected plumbing.  Pipes that lead into surface water drains, rather than into sewers, bring these pollutants into our rivers.

While Thames Water and the Environment Agency monitor the river catchment and respond to pollution incidents, it is very hard to create a detailed map of all the troublesome outfalls that have, so far, remained under the radar. An Outfall Safari is the answer. 

Designed to be undertaken by local volunteers, an Outfall Safari requires no expertise beyond simple data collection, which is covered in the bespoke training in September, and keenness to take walks alongside our rivers (and occasionally in them). 

This is a short-term commitment: it will be run over a period of around one month (October 2017) and relies on lots of small teams of volunteers each doing as much or as little as they want.  One team member will record the observations of the group using a simple mobile app and the uploaded data collected by all the teams will create a detailed picture of the current state of the catchment.

 Our Outfall Safari training will be on Wednesday 27th September 2017, from 10-12 noon.  Our trainer is Joe Pecorelli of the Zoological Society of London.  Flyer attached with full details – training is of course free.

An Outfall Safari gathers valuable information.  Data from the app is mapped and passed on the Environment Agency and Thames Water.  And any severe pollution revealed can be investigated immediately by these agencies.  It is a proven method of checking on London’s rivers, already tested on the rivers Crane, Hogsmill and Dollis Brook, and about to be used on the river Pinn.  It relies fully on Citizen Scientists!

Please contact Lawrence for more information or if you are keen to take part.


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July – September 2017 Rivers and People Programme is now available

ACT UK- Sony Pictures Entertainment helping out at the 3 Rivers Clean Up in Manor Park

After a busy Summer of events, a huge amount of work was achieved by all the volunteers that came out and did their bit for Lewisham’s rivers. There is always work to do though, so if you missed out or enjoyed yourself so much that you’d like to do more, please have a look at the new Rivers and People programme to see if you can help. You’d be very welcome!

 


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Bug Day at Sydenham Hill Wood – Thursday 27 July, 11am-2pm

Honey Bee on ragwort (©Daniel Greenwood)

Honey Bee on ragwort (©Daniel Greenwood)

A family-friendly day to celebrate the amazing invertebrates that are so vital to our world

Join the London Wildlife Trust for this family event to celebrate the weird and wonderful insects that are so important to Sydenham Hill Wood and the ecosystems we depend on for survival.

If you love bees, butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, bugs and slugs, you will love bug day!

We’ll be leading pond dipping sessions to discover the wild world underneath the surface of the Dewy Pond, searching for beetles and creepy crawlies under logs, and identifying butterflies and bees in the Wood’s sunny glades.

Venue Location

Sydenham Hill Wood and Cox’s Walk,
Southwark,
Greater London,
SE26 6LS

Grid reference
TQ344725


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Butterfly Walk, Sydenham Hill Woods – Sunday 23 July, 2pm-4pm

Comma butterfly on bindweed

Comma butterfly © Daniel Greenwood

 

A guided butterfly walk in Sydenham Hill Wood

Please note booking is essential for this event

Join the London Wildlife Trust’s Sydenham Hill Wood volunteer Emma Pooley for a guided walk looking at the range of butterflies that can be found in an urban woodland.

Sydenham Hill Wood is a mixture of ancient and secondary woodland with large, sunny glades where butterflies bask, feed and breed in the spring and summer months. We are likely to encounter speckled wood, comma, peacock, red admiral, skippers and whites. This walk is also an opportunity to raise awareness of bees, moths, dragonflies and all the other invertebrates which play such a vital role in the ecosystems we depend on for a healthy environment.

The weather is key in the success of this walk. If there is prolonged rain, thunderstorms or high winds the walk will be postponed to a later date.

Please bring clothing suitable for the conditions (sun hat, sun cream and water if needed) as well as footwear suitable for uneven paths and gentle inclines.

This is a free walk, a minimum donation of £2 towards our work is recommended

If you love Sydenham Hill Wood please help us protect it in the long term by becoming a London Wildlife Trust member


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Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries open day 9 July 2017

FOBLC poster

The Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries (FoBLC) is this year celebrating the 10th anniversary of its formation.  Over the last few years FoBLC has held an Open Day within the cemetery to promote this beautiful, peaceful and historic Victorian landscape – leading tours of the cemetery, mounting an exhibition giving information on the history of the cemetery, its memorials, famous persons interred there, current and future conservation work, its flora and fauna. We also sell refreshments and publications. The aim is to enable visitors to gain an insight into the history of the cemetery, discover its beauty and its importance to the Brockley and Ladywell environs.