Volunteering

Oxleas Wood Saturday, 13th June 2026 What a perfect day for a woodland conservation session! The sun was shining, the sky was brilliantly blue, and a gentle breeze kept temperatures comfortable throughout the morning. Best of all, despite some uncertain forecasts earlier in the week, there wasn’t a raincloud in sight. Meeting at the fingerpost on the main ride in Oxleas, our team of 17 volunteers gathered, donned their hi-vis vests, collected their tools, and set off with ent

Severndroog Castle Entrance The second stop on our mission to clean up signage and make our woodlands even more welcoming was one of the main entrances to the woods – the access point by Severndroog Castle and Car Park. Looking unloved.. This interpretation sign was badly covered with algae and it was very difficult to read the information. Additionally, the fly-posting detracts from the quality of the board and looks unsightly. This area proved to be a much bigger task than

June 2026 Shepherdleas Wood - Sign 1 For a while, we’ve been saddened to see these beautiful entrance signs to the woodlands looking neglected and have often talked about giving them a clean and helping them look their best again, but somehow never quite found the right moment. Recently, however, the motivation and the time finally came together, so we decided to get stuck in! Armed with a ladder, buckets, sponges, scrubbing brushes, a broom, and three large containers of soa

Saturday, 6th June 2026 Breezy Conditions, Lighter Loads Despite a breezy morning with occasional showers, 12 volunteers turned out for our latest litter pick around the Oxleas Car Park and Café area. The good news was that litter levels were noticeably lighter than usual. A particularly helpful community member had pinned litter sacks to trees throughout the area, especially along the area closest to Shooters Hill, an area that is often heavily affected by littering. This s

Jack Wood 6th June 2026 The weather had other plans for us this week. After spending our previous session in Hotel Field raking up the grass left after mowing, we had intended to return and continue the work. However, the heavy downpours throughout the week left the cut grass soggy, heavy, and difficult to move. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of conservation tasks in the woodlands for our dedicated volunteers, so we adapted our plans and headed back into Jack Wood ins

Oxleas Wood April 2026 From the coppicing training session in October through to the start of the bird nesting season in spring, this has been one of our most popular conservation activities. A total of 8 sessions took place, in addition to the initial training session, plus three special volunteering days with Barclays. A fantastic 660 recorded hours were spent on the project and we were also fortunate to receive many additional hours of support from dedicated volunteers wh

Hotel Field - Meadow Restoration Friday, 15th May 2026 A picture of a long-gone rural past? Well almost - if you can ignore the hi-vis vests! If you had been passing through Hotel Field on Friday morning, you would have spotted our 19 volunteers dotted around the area, cutting, raking and wheeling barrows. The field had recently received its early mow and the buttercups, jacob’s ladder, cleavers and many more species were already pushing up through the grass, which is both

Shepherdleas Wood - The Glade Tuesday, 26th May 2026 Tuesday’s woodland conservation session fell within the recent May heatwave and it was hot, hot, hot! We rarely cancel sessions unless there is a real danger to our volunteers, and we leave the decision to individuals as to whether they wish to attend or not – and guess what? Six determined volunteers braved the heat and got down to work. Before the usual health and safety introduction, volunteers were reminded to make s

Eltham Common Saturday, 9th May 2026 What a beautiful, sunny morning we had for our May Litter Picking session. The sun was shining, the weather was warm, and our plan was to litter pick in what is, arguably, one of the most relaxing spaces to pick - the woods of Eltham Common. Kitted up and ready for action! Kitted out in Hi-Vis vests, with rings, bags and pickers handed out, we split into two groups: one group started by picking in and around the car park, working their wa

Oxleas Wood Saturday, 9th May, 2026 Another, sunny morning in the woodlands and what a beautiful area to work, amongst the blossom, flowers and wildlife. This time we concentrated our efforts on clearing the main invasive plant in this particular wood - rhododendron! As a SSSI, we are tasked with conserving this ancient woodland by reducing and preventing the spread of this plant which was, most likely, introduced within the garden of the Victorian era mansions that once st

Jack Wood Friday, 1st May 2026 This session fell on a Bank Holiday weekend - a hot day too - but this did not prevent our team of 8 dedicated volunteers from continuing our work in Jack Wood, where the trees meet the path up to the cafe from the Rochester Way. Ready for action! Firstly, we found a space to place the cut Snowberry which was removed at the previous session. Building a dead hedge within the shade of the tree-line, at the top margin of Oxleas Meadow, seemed lik

Shepherdleas Wood - Pathways and Ditches 28th April 2026 For many years, an area on the Green Chain Walk, close to the Falconwood entrance to Shepherdleas has been impassable in the winter. Rainwater overflowed the collapsed bridge and ditch and flooded the path. For the last three years we have carried out activities to improve this: we have cleared the drain, replaced the bridge edges, inserted a drainpipe, cleared the ditch, built a small dam, cleared mulch from the path

Oxleas Wood - Friday, 24th April, 2026 This second of five special Barclays volunteering days in 2026 had been organised since early last autumn. Everyone was looking forward to the day, and indeed, we had several ‘returners’ demonstrating their enjoyment of previous days and a growing attachment to our aims, particularly as many volunteers live outside London itself, never mind Greenwich! It was, therefore, a great disappointment for all involved when a public transport st

On Sunday, a half dozen volunteers sat down on the grass in Jackwood and got to work on a bit of detail weeding.

Jack Wood - Pathways, Verges and Edges 17 th April 2026 On this bright, mild day, a cheerful group of 15 volunteers set off from our meeting point, pushing two wheelbarrows loaded with garden forks, spades, loppers, and two tree-pullers. Eight volunteers headed to the edge of Jack Wood and Oxleas Meadow to tackle a dense wall of invasive snowberry. This proved to be a mammoth task. It involved digging into a thick carpet of roots to loosen them, using tree-pullers to lever

Woodland Edges - Rochester & Welling Ways Saturday, 11th April 2026 Litter Picking along the woodland edges of the Rochester and Welling Ways is always rewarding and Saturday’s session was no exception. At this time of the year, it’s especially uplifting to see spring flowers pushing through and bringing the woodland floor back to life. It makes our efforts feel even more worthwhile. With the surroundings at their best, the presence of litter feels all the more out of plac

The main task was to continue clearing the beds, removing obvious weeds to give emerging plants the space and resources they need to thrive.

Jack Wood 3rd April 2026 Good Friday turned out to be an excellent session for the woodlands when an amazing 23 volunteers turned up in force to reinstate the dead hedge which, just a week ago, was burnt to the ground. That's another 69 hours' work replacing two-thirds of a hedge that we had built just over a year ago! Frustrating - yes - but an opportunity, as always, to learn and to improve our methods. Our plan - to build in something which would slow down any fire whil

This Saturday, there were definite signs of spring about. We were back in the coppicing area, but not to coppice trees. With leaf buds forming, its too late in the year to cut hazel. Instead, we're working on dealing with all the material that's been generated over the winter. And there's a lot of it. We'd already made one length of dead hedge with a solidity and height that made it good for a bench, and since we liked it, we thought we could make another. Three of the cre

Shepherdleas Wood 24th March 2026 Today, the sunshine had disappeared and the temperatures had dropped but, nevertheless, it was great weather for working in the woods. Nine volunteers joined us in Shepherdleas to continue our activities improving the pathside verges. As usual, we began by removing, or reducing in height, invasive and competitive shrubs which were casting shade on the verges and preventing vegetation from growing which are needed for butterflies and pollinat