Sydenham Hill Wood
Sydenham Hill Wood is a nine-acre nature reserve in Greater London . It is located on Claygate Ridge , which stretches between Deptford , Streatham and Selhurst and the London Borough of Southwark . Together with the adjacent Dulwich Wood , Sydenham Hill Wood forms the largest remaining area of the former Great North Wood , which once stretched from Deptford to Selhurst. The two forests were separated by the move of the Crystal Palace in 1854 and the construction of the railway line, which was built to connect it from 1862 to 1865.
The site is leased to the London Borough of Southwark, which has chosen the London Wildlife Trust to manage the nature reserve. This took over management in 1982 and, with the active support of the population, was able to maintain a valuable reserve for wild animals and a peaceful oasis in the busy metropolis of London.
In 1997 Sydenham Hill Wood received the UK-MAB Urban Wildlife Award for Excellence.
history
Called Cox's Walk, Oak Alley, which begins at the intersection of Dulwich Common and Lordship Lane, was built by Francis Cox in the 1740s to connect his Green Man Tavern and Dulwich Wells to the more famous Sydenham Wells Park. When the poet Thomas Campbell lived in Sydenham from 1805 to 1822, he met his friend Dr. Glennie, who ran a school on the premises of the inn, visits Dulwich Grove .
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After the Crystal Palace moved in 1854, the Dulwich Property Manager, whose job it was to use the estate's land to fund the college, offered lease land on Sydenham Hill . Some very large houses were built on these. There were 7 houses between Crescent Wood Road and Cox's Walk. One of the largest was "The Hoo", it was almost exactly opposite the present house 36 Sydenham Hill. Some horticultural publications by George William Johnson from the 1880s mention the owners of "The Hoo", Richard Thornton and his wife, and the gardeners Ratty and Barrell.
It is still unknown who built the Folly , which is believed to have been located in Beechgrove's original garden at 111 Sydenham Hill. The scratched lines simulating brickwork were very similar to those on the bridge in Buckingham Palace gardens . The Pulham Catalog states that James Pulham and Son did a lot of work in the Sydenham and Dulwich area in the 1870s. In the grounds in front of Kingswood House, less than one mile from there, are the remains of structures made of pulhamite, an artificial sandstone.
In 1862 the London, Chatham and Dover Railway began construction of the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway to connect the Crystal Palace. The route ran from Nunhead through Sydenham Hill Wood, through the grounds of Dulwich College and two tunnels, and ended west of Crystal Palace. It opened on August 1, 1865 with a train station, the Gothic terminus “Crystal Palace (High Level)” by builder Charles Barry , but further stations soon followed with the Lordship Lane Railway Station on September 1, the Honor Oak Railway Station on September 1 December, and Nunhead Railway Station on September 18, 1871. Upper Sydenham Railway Station opened on August 1, 1884.
In 1871 Camille Pissarro painted the view from the bridge of Cox's Walk onto the railway line towards Lordship Lane. The image of the steam-emitting locomotive embodies the optimism of the age of industrialization . In 1908 the teak and iron pedestrian bridge was rebuilt in the same style as the original.
The fortunes of the railroad depended on the Crystal Palace, and they fell sharply after it burned down in 1936. The railway closed during the war and reopening in the post-war period was unsuccessful as the Crystal Palace High Level station was in poor condition. The last train ran in 1954. The rails were removed in 1956 and in 1961 the terminus was demolished.
In the 1950s and early 1960s there were still remnants of stained glass in the windows of the Folly, and an artificial stream flowed down the mountain nearby. There were greenhouses and potting sheds in the forest. In one of these sheds there were still clay flower pots of all sizes just as the gardener had set them up. The greenhouses were surrounded by boiler houses and heating systems with large hot water pipes.
In the 80s, the old forest area became an object of desire for property developers. Professor Gordon MacGregor Reid (President Linnean Society of London from 2003-2006), who was working at the Horniman Museum at the time , organized the London Wildlife Trust's Sydenham Hill Wood Committee to fight this. At the same time, Private Eye magazine was also writing about the topic. In 1988 there were still many wild rhododendron bushes , a single Araucaria araucana , the remains of an artificial water basin, fragments of the Pulhamite ornaments and the folly.
The tracks were built over in some places, other areas were renatured. Part of the route between the Horniman Museum and the gardens is now a Railway Nature Trail maintained for the museum by the Trust for Urban Ecology. In Sydenham Hill Wood you can follow the path from the footbridge over Cox's Walk to the entrance of the Crescent Wood Tunnel. The exit of the tunnel is in the north corner of Wells Park.
In the west and parallel to the route, the small stream Ambrook, a tributary of the River Effra, flows through the forest, which feeds a pond in the neighboring Dulwich Wood. From there it flows over a golf course, then along Cox's Walk, under Dulwich Common and then into a lake in Dulwich Park . When it rains heavily, the creek emerges from the pipes under the city and flows around the park on Frank Dixon Way.
Flora and fauna
The unique mix of mature woodland, remnants of Victorian gardens and newly planted woodland is one of Central London's closest old woodlands and is home to over 200 species of trees and flowering plants. A variety of mushrooms, rare insects, birds and mammals also have their home in the forest.
The forest consists mainly of sessile oak and hornbeam , but there are also a large number of other tree and shrub species, including numerous exotic plants. These were planted when the wooded area contained parts of large gardens. The flora shows numerous indicators of a long-established forest: wood anemones , lilies of the valley and hairy groves . The latter two are rare in London. All three British woodpeckers breed, along with the nuthatch , treecreeper , tawny owl and sparrowhawk . Hawfinches are occasionally noticed and apparently also breed. There are many invertebrates as well as the blue oak hairstreak and several nationally rare bees and wasps. There are also 174 species of mushrooms and mosses, including the mnium punctatum, which is otherwise missing in all of London.
Since there is only one small pond in Sydenham Hill Wood, which tends to dry out in the summer, it is not common to find frogs and toads.
In the forest and bats live, namely the common pipistrelle , the soprano pipistrelle , the noctule whose population decreased nationally, and at least one type of mouse ears and brown long-eared bat , which was nowhere else registered in Southwark.
literature
- “The Great North Wood - A Brief History of the Ancient Forests from Selhurst to Deptford” by LSC Neville, London Wildlife Trust, 1987 Booklet (out of print)
- “The Great North Woods of the Norwood and Sydenham Ridge” by Mathew Frith, London Wildlife Trust, 1996 leaflet.
- C “Crystal Palace (High Level) and Catford Loop” by Mitchell & K Smith, Middleton Press, 1991
- “The Railway through Sydenham Hill Wood, From the Nun's Head to the Screaming Alice” by Mathew Frith, The Friends of the Great North Wood and London Wildlife Trust leaflet 1995.
- “London's Local Railways” by AA Jackson, David & Charles, 1978
- “The Crystal Palace (High Level) Branch” by W. Smith, British Railway Journal 28, 1989
- Guaranteed Shelf Life - Pulhamite Rockwork pdf file on the English Heritage website.
Web links
- Via Lordship Lane station
- Pictures on Flickr
- The Dulwich Society
- Sydenham Town Forum
- Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods on London Wildweb
- london-footprints.co.uk
- The Pulham Legacy About the Victorian company James Pulham and Son, which is said to have built the Folly and extensive garden facilities.
- The London Wildlife Trust
- Sydenham Hill Wood page on www.wildlondon.org.uk.
Individual evidence
- ^ Secret London: Sydenham Hill - The view from the bridge by Humphrey Evans, The Independent on Sunday, Dec 28, 2003
- ^ LWT interpretation board at the Crecescent Wood Road entrance
- ^ The Great North Wood - A brief history of ancient woodlands from Selhurst to Deptford by LSC Neville, London Wildlife Trust, 1987
- ^ A b c London Wildlife Trust ( September 29, 2011 memento in the Internet Archive ) about Sydenham Hill Wood & Cox's Walk
- ^ A b Colin Higgins, Project Manager, Sydenham Hill Wood LNR, London Wildlife Trust
- ↑ MaB Urban Forum ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b From the Nun's Head to the Screaming Alice by Mathew Frith, The Friends of the Great North Wood, 1995
- ↑ "Thomas Campbell" in A Book of Memories: Great Men and Women of the Age, from personal Acquaintance (1871) pages 345-58 by SC Hall ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically defective marked. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ From a search for "The Hoo, Sydenham Hill" on Google Books
- ^ A b Great Credit upon the Ingenuity and Taste of Mr. Pulham by Sally Festing, Garden History, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Spring, 1988), pp. 90-102
- ↑ a b c london-footprints.co.uk information is available on the notice boards at the site entrances
- ↑ Disused Stations in the UK Lordship Lane page
- ^ Subterranea Britannica Site: Upper Sydenham Station
- ↑ From a reminiscence by Kenny B about Sydenham Hill on Sydenham Town Forum ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Linnean 2005 volume 21 number 1 ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Walking the River Effra ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ London Wildweb ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ London Wildlife Trust News Archive ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Monday September 10, 2007, Woodland Bat Roost Project at Sydenham Hill Wood
Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 9.2 ″ N , 0 ° 4 ′ 1.6 ″ W.