Park of the week

173. Wood Farm Nature Reserve

This nature reserve is in Stanmore, to the north of Stanmore Country Park and close to my favourite swimming pool at the Aspire Leisure Centre with its bath-temperature water and lovely disabled people. The nature reserve is a mixture of rough grassland and scrub with a path running through it, and great views over London. It’s also a haven for birds; kestrel, sparrowhawk, buzzard and red kite all hunt over it.

Once a farm, and then a landfill site, the area was previously inaccessible to the public. It was handed over to the council in 2015, with a small parcel of land being sold off for redevelopment into housing. The proceeds of this went towards funding the transformation of the land into the green space it is today. The Old Dairy on Wood Lane had been used for storing milk for distribution and has been converted to a visitor centre. The nature reserve is now managed by a volunteer warden supported by a management committee comprising council officers, elected councillors and volunteers. It’s open all year round.

The London Viewpoint is a short distance along the path that starts from the car park, and a sign points out what to look for. We made out the tops of the Canary Wharf skyscrapers and the Shard, BT Tower, the London Eye. Closer, Wembley Stadium dominates, but on a really clear day it’s said that you can see the control tower at Heathrow. The line of hills on the far horizon are the North Downs, which mark the southern border of the M25 — so on this high hill not far from the northern side of the M25 you can see across the whole of London.

There’s also a Pond to the right of that path. In summer, dragonflies and damselflies flit over the pond or rest on the waterside plants. In late summer, large numbers of swallows and house martins swoop over the pond to drink as they mass in preparation for their migration south.

When we went, earlier this year, the place was almost empty except for a few dog walkers. Somewhere along the path one of my hearing aids fell off but I didn’t notice till too late. If you go along and find it, I don’t want it back, thanks all the same.

Judith Field

Wood Farm Nature Reserve, 17 Wood Lane, Stanmore, HA7 4LJ