Volunteering

On Saturday 17 January, ten volunteers continued winter tidying in Jackwood House Garden — sorting compost, creating a wildlife pile, clearing brambles, cutting back laurel and beginning to remove Virginia creeper from the terrace walls.

Friday, 16th January 2026 Jack Wood We cancelled the rain, booked the sun and… hey presto, we were rewarded!  What lovely weather we had for our first Friday, Woodland Conservation Group session of 2026 and what a difference it made to our activities! A group of 20 volunteers joined us, including two new volunteers, and we split into three separate groups to continue our path-side activities. Sunshine and Smiles! Hazel Post & Binder Fence   The first group made excellent use

Oxleas Wood 10th January 2026 A Brilliant Start to 2026: Our First Woodland Conservation Session Willing volunteers, a packed woodland, and a brilliant start to our first Woodland Conservation Session of 2026 (Shooter’s Hill Woodlands Working Party). Maybe it was the result of New Year resolutions to get out into nature, get fitter, or give something back to the community. Whatever the reason, we were delighted to welcome everyone! A total of 30 people attended, including eig

The weather on Friday meant we had to consider how to ensure the volunteer session remained safe and enjoyable.

3rd January 2026 Woodland Edges along The Ways After all the festive fun, what a pleasure it was to get back to the woodlands helping make a difference.  The day was dry, with temperatures just a little below zero, but with the sun shining brightly, it was the perfect day for pottering about on the woodland edges collecting litter.    Although this is a busy location to conduct our pick, what a pleasure it was to set off from beside Oxleas Pond.  It looked absolutely stunning

Jack Wood 19th December 2025   What a fantastic day, Friday turned out to be, especially contrasting it with the appalling rain and wind we experienced the previous day.  Just as fantastic was the size of the group which gathered (17), particularly as we are so close to the Christmas festivities.  What a wonderful group of people we have in our community, willing to give up their time so freely to make a difference to these beautiful woodlands.   The focus for one group was t

16th December 2025 Shepherdleas Wood Volunteering in Shepherdleas Wood on a Tuesday is always a pleasure – a beautiful environment, calm and peaceful (if you ignore the traffic on the A2!) and a small, friendly group.  It was a chilly day but luckily there was some respite from the rain.    Seven volunteers attended and continued the restoration work in the area beside the bridge where bluebells and wood anemone are known to grow.  Some volunteers pulled up part of the huge m

Saturday, 13th December, 2025 Oxleas Car Park & Surroundings We were a happy band of 12 at today's session - and what a lovely, sunny day it was for our final litter pick of 2025!   We pickers gathered at Oxleas car park, eager to get started, and we were very pleased to welcome two brand new volunteers to our group. It's always good to have new volunteers amongst us and we hope we will have even more sign up for our 2026 sessions. A leisurely litter pick on the sunny woodla

We carried on working our way through the hazel stools in this year's coupe. By part way through the session, we were starting to see continuous areas of cleared coppice, and the area was obviously more open.

This Friday half a dozen of our volunteers borrowed a barrow load of tools and puttered around to Jackwood garden to work on the compost situation.

28th November, 2025 Jack Wood - Wildflower Area (J1A) Well, those crossed fingers and toes (hoping for good weather for our session) finally worked and Friday’s Woodland Conservation Session took place in mild, bright weather, if a little slippery underfoot following Thursday’s rain. As we had a very 'healthy' team of 16 volunteers, we were not only able to continue our work in the area next to the opening to the lower path from Oxleas Meadow, but we were also able to have

Shepherdleas Wood Tuesday, 18th November, 2025 Eleven volunteers turned out for Tuesday’s session.  That’s another whopping 33 hours of work and it meant that great progress was made on restoring the wildflower area across from the bridge separating Eltham Park South from Shepherdleas Wood.  Again, our aim was to get more light to the woodland floor by removing holly, as well as reducing compaction and fragmentation in the area, which has been caused by the narrowing of the m

Jackwood House Garden   Sunday, 16 th November 2025   Our second session this month was a typical, dull, damp November day but our seven, determined gardening volunteers were not deterred and got to work with gusto. Jackwood House Garden - The Fountain - swamped with vegetation.   As usual, we divided into two separate groups:  four people got back to work on the terrace area, continuing the super work they had started last session - trimming back the wisteria on the right-h

Friday, 14th November - Cancelled Jack Wood - Wildflower Area - Lower Path Having carried out our first autumn session in this beautiful woodland area on the edge of Oxleas Meadow, we were looking forward to a second session to finish clearing the holly stand, before moving on. But…the weather had different ideas!  If there is one thing you can say about our weather, it is changeable from day to day, and as the week went by, it looked more and more likely that we were going t

Oxleas Wood Saturday, 8th November, 2025 This weekend’s session marked an amazing milestone in the history of the Shooters Hill Woodlands Working Party.   It is exactly 30 years this week since the very first woodland conservation session took place in the woodlands!   Even more impressive is that Laurie Baker, one of its members from day one, continues to run sessions, as well as sitting on the committee of The Friends of Oxleas Woodlands.  His valuable contribution helps us

Six of our volunteers spent a grey and drizzly afternoon hard at work in the garden. While some of the group puttered around in the flowerbeds planting some extra bulbs and tidying up a little bit, three brave souls carried on with our most mammoth task to date - the wisteria.

We got a start on coppicing in the 2025-26 coupe. Most of us had met up only recently for training - we were joined by some of our other regular volunteers, who include both coppicing novices and people who have coppiced extensively at Woodlands Farm and at Scabry.

Jack Wood - Wildflower Rescue Friday, 31st October 2025 On Friday, our hardy Woodland Conservation Volunteers gathered in the morning drizzle ready for our session, not wanting to miss an opportunity to get into the woodlands and make a difference.  This time we were moving on from the large wildflower area near Jackwood Garden to a smaller area at the opening to Lower Path in Jack Wood from Oxleas Meadow ,which we began restoring over a year ago.     Getting to work clearing

Saturday, 25th October, 2025 Severndroog Castle & Eltham Common Wood Saturday’s litter pick took place in, arguably, one of the most beautiful areas of woodland this team works in - and what a lovely morning it was for it too!  The sun shone brightly, a very light breeze rustled the dry autumn leaves remaining on the trees, and not a drop of rain fell until after we had finished our session.  How lucky were we? What a contrast from the previous weekend’s gale force gusts! As

About half of the coppicing team spent the morning of Saturday 25th in Oxleas Wood improving our knowledge and skills in coppicing.