Nestled between the South Circular Road and Crystal Palace is a quiet and magical slice of woodland. Sydenham Hill Wood, along with the neighbouring Dulwich Wood, covers some 60 acres in total, the largest remaining fragment of the Great North Wood, which used to stretch from Selhurst to Deptford.

Listen to the podcast

We're looking for volunteers...

This inspiring habitat represents one of the largest parts of ancient woodland in central London. Sydenham Hill Woods, located on the borders of Southwark and Lewisham, is home to monkey puzzle trees, Victorian follies, an old railway line and a tunnel, all within 21 and a half acres.

The land is owned by the Dulwich Estate, the charity which runs Dulwich College, but in 1982, Sydenham Hill Wood was leased to Southwark Council, which chose the then newly formed London Wildlife Trust to manage the wood and ensure that it would be available for future generations to enjoy.

London Wildlife Trust is the only charity dedicated to protecting wildlife in the capital and ensuring that London will remain a healthy, Green city in the future. As part of this, it manages over 50 nature reserves and other green spaces, which are run for members of the public and are all free to visit.

Sydenham Hill Wood is one of London Wildlife Trust’s most popular and treasured sites and is open for the public to enjoy every day of the year.

If you go down to the woods today...

Sydenham Hill Woods was once used for wood and charcoal production but is now protected as a Site of Metropolitan Importance. The old and beautiful English Oaks and Hornbeams demonstrate the ancient woodland heritage of the site along with healthy populations of woodland plants such as bluebells, ramsoms and wood anemones to name a few of the 200 species of trees, flowering plants and fungi that live in the woods.

In the 1870s, large Victorian villas with huge back gardens were built on Sydenham Hill and many of these garden plants have spread to the wood, giving a truly unique mixture of woodland and garden species.

As the houses were demolished in 1958 due to the expense of their upkeep, the gardens returned to the wood and old garden trees and plants have now been incorporated into the woodland, including a spectacular cedar of Lebanon, mulberry tree and some less welcome invasive species like laurel, rhododendron and bamboo.

How to find us...

Crescent Wood Road (off Sydenham Hill) is probably the most direct route. At this entrance there is a map and a notice board informing visitors of forthcoming events. Further up Crescent Wood Road is the house of John Logie Baird, inventor of the television.

Cox’s Walk is a long tree-lined avenue leading from Dulwich Common up to Sydenham Hill. The Dulwich Common entrance is directly opposite the Grove Tavern, and in fact, Cox’s Walk was originally cut out of the woodland by a Mr Cox, who was the owner of the pub at the time (then called the Green Man). He very shrewdly saw a market for thirsty timber workers walking past his pub after a hard day working in the wood!

Picture perfect

The railway track bed that passes under the bridge on Cox’s Walk used to run from Nunhead to Crystal Palace Higher Level Station and was built to take tourists to the Crystal Palace (more of which later). The railway line was finally closed in 1954. The Bridge is also famous in its own right as the location from which the French Impressionist painter Camille Pisarro painted Lordship Lane station, now long since closed. The painting itself is now in the Courtauld Gallery in central London.

Frogs and follies

Nestled within a yew lined alley, is the Folly. What looks like a ruined archway from a church or monastery, is actually an artificial ruin which used to stand in someone’s back garden in Victorian times as a sort of joke or talking point. The cup-like structures in the ground behind the folly may have been a water feature within the garden.

In the woods a small pond supports populations of frogs, newts and toads. There is also a river called the Ambrook which is a tributary of the Effra, a now mainly underground river that runs through Southwark. The Ambrook is in some parts merely a trickle, and London Wildlife Trust are hoping to improve the Ambrook, that runs along the railway trackbed and the pond that it feeds.

Bat magic

Heading on back along the railway track you will eventually get to the Tunnel. This disused railway tunnel is about a quarter of a mile long and the other end comes out by a housing estate on Sydenham Hill, in Forest Hill. In 2005, it was discovered that the tunnel was used by brown long-eared bats, the first record of this woodland species in Southwark.

There is now a £60k project (funded by the SITA Trust, Southwark Council and Lewisham Council) to improve the wood and the tunnel for bats, and five species of these threatened mammals have been recorded here to date.

One of the best things about Sydenham Hill Wood is that once you’re in the wood, you really wouldn’t believe that you were in the middle of urban London. It’s quiet and cool and there are many things to see that you just wouldn’t expect.

All kinds of woodpecker action

There are some quite impressive birds using the wood. A pair of kestrels breed in the spire of the church down Cox’s Walk. There are woodpeckers all year round with three species using the woods regularly – Greater spotted, Green and even Lesser spotted as well as nuthatch and tree creeper regularly being recorded by volunteers.

Flowers and trees

The wood is an important site for wild flowers with the ancient woodland habitat meaning that many plants occur here which are rare in the rest of London. Bluebells and wood anemones are plentiful in spring time and there are rarities such as Solomon’s seal and wood sorrel.

There are also some plants which actively thrive on the disturbed ground where the railway track used to be. There are large patches of Rosebay willowherb, a tall purple flower, also known as “Fireweed”. It gets this name as it is often the first plant to grow back in areas which have been affected by forest fire, and was noticeable for growing on bomb sites during the London Blitz.

The older sections of the wood mainly consist of oak and hornbeam, another indication of its history as part of the Great North Wood, while across the newer parts, ash and sycamore are probably the commonest trees.

Woodland creatures

There are also many mammals which make the wood their home. Grey Squirrels are probably the most obvious, but foxes and wood mice are also relatively common. At least five species of bat live in and around the wood including the first record of brown long-eared bats living within Southwark. All British bats are insect eaters, so they rely on a good supply of moths and other insects which are attracted by the plantlife of the wood.

Get involved!

London Wildlife Trust manages the wood for the benefit of visitors and for wildlife, and seeks to raise awareness of its importance among the wider public. Volunteers play a crucial role in helping to carry out a range of management activities, both at Sydenham Hill Wood and at other London Wildlife Trust reserves, such as building a fence and cutting the meadow and no experience is required.

Workdays are every Wednesday from 10.30am and two Sunday’s a month. Membership of the trust also helps to play a vital role in keeping Sydenham Hill Woods and 50 other sites open for the public to enjoy.

To ensure the woods are protected for generations in the future to enjoy, visitors are asked to keep to the existing paths to prevent important plants or insect colonies being lost underfoot.

This story was written as part of the Story of London Festival