From Regent’s Park to Hyde, London is full of impressive parks and gardens, but sometimes small is beautiful, and tucked away in north London’s mainly residential district of Islington, there is a tiny woodland in London you can visit for just two hours a week.
Barnsbury Wood was originally a garden belonging to 19th century Member of Parliament, George Thornhill. It is about the size of two hockey rinks, at 0.35 hectares, around 3500 square metres.
Thornhill built houses surrounding the wood in the 1840s and the garden was eventually abandoned and left to woodland. Over a hundred years later, in the 1970s, the local council purchased it with the intention of building on the land, but in the 1990s they decided instead to turn it into a nature reserve – the city’s smallest – cared for by the local volunteers and used to educate schoolchildren about environmental issues.
Although the woodland has featured on TV, as a location in an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, it is little known, except perhaps to its wilder residents, such as the long-tailed tit, lesser stag beetle, common toad and the sixteen-spot ladybird.
The nature spot’s relative anonymity is not helped by its limited opening times. Anyone wishing to explore can only do so on Tuesdays from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm between October and June. In the summer, access improves slightly. From July to the end of September, you can visit on Saturdays from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
If you live locally and want a chance to visit more often, there is however a way to do so. A volunteer group which cares for Islington’s three nature reserves meets every Thursday from 10 am to 3.30 pm to carry out work, which, according to the official website could include “cutting meadows, weeding the wildlife garden, coppicing trees, cutting back bramble and pond maintenance.” No experience is needed and all tools are provided.
One major job that happened in January 2023 was the “laying down” of a large and beloved horse chestnut that had started to lean dangerously. Efforts to prop up the octogenarian tree had failed. The prospect of cutting the tree down for safety was unthinkable, so the authorities lowered it down on the ground carefully with winches, keeping as much live root as possible attached to the main trunk. If successful, the tree will be able to continue to grow. Why not find out for yourself how it is doing?
The reserve can be found on Crescent Street, off Huntington Road in Islington. The nearest underground station is Caledonian Road and the closest train station is Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. If you want to get the bus, you can get on the 17, 91, 153, 259 or 274. Paths are not paved, but access is reasonably good, with no slopes or steps.
Note that, sadly, our four-legged friends may not enter the woodland.
