20/01/2022 10:09:37 AM
41. Coppett’s Wood and Scrublands
Coppett's Wood and Scrublands is a Grade I Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, between Muswell Hill and Friern Barnet. It’s part of the Coppett’s Wood and Glebelands Local Nature Reserve.
The Scrublands reserve occupies a former sewage works which was later a rubbish dump. This is now covered by a wide diversity of vegetation and it’s the main area where the birds feed.
Coppett’s Wood used to be part of an extensive area of woodland, which later became known as Finchley Common. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Common was a notorious haunt of highwaymen. It was also used for military exercises and other activities such as bare-knuckle boxing, pigeon shooting and horse racing.
The main trees in the wood are oak and hornbeam, and a variety of plants can be found, including bluebell and garlic mustard. There’s a small pond with yellow iris, frogs, and newts. Birds include woodpeckers, tawny owls and sparrowhawks and there are a number of rare insect species.
The wood was used for military training and gas mask testing during the Second World War. Some maps show ‘tank traps’ in the wood, and we did see the remains of large hollow concrete cylinders, near the main footpath in the south of the wood. If that’s what they really are, they’d be well hidden in the wood and if there was an invasion, they might have been using during the war to block roads leading south into London and slow down the advance of tanks. A hollow in the south-west corner may be a bomb crater. During the Second World War, German planes flew overhead to bomb the radio transmitting station at Alexandra Palace. Sometimes planes would release bombs at random places, perhaps on the return journey, and one may have been dropped and exploded in Coppett’s Wood.
Access is from Colney Hatch Lane, where you’d have to find a parking space on the road, and from the Benighted North Circular. There’s also an entrance on Summers Lane, N12, where there’s a car park.
Judith Field
Coppett’s Wood, Colney Hatch Lane, London N12 0LT
