Shooters Hill Woodlands Working Party

Saturday, 12th July, 2025

Oxleas Wood - Large Pond

Last Saturday morning’s Woodland Conservation Session was the ideal opportunity to get our wellies on and get to work on our fresh delivery of pond plants.

At the end of 2024, Froglife, as part of their Blue Chain Project to create and improve habitats for amphibians and reptiles in South East London, dug out the large pond at the corner of the Welling and Rochester Ways, returning it to its original size. Over the months since then, the pond has filled up with rainwater, the bottom and sides have settled and frogs have moved back in. However, with the recent dry weather, the large amount of spoil from the pond, and the large amount of mechanical disruption previously involved, the plants have still to get a hold on the banks.

The long-awaited donation from Froglife of 8 large boxes, containing a total of 79 native pond plants, had just arrived the previous day and the volunteers’ job was to pop them in without delay.

We had a team of a dozen or so people, some more equipped than others to get very muddy. Quite a lot of wood had been tossed into the pond in the last six months so one of the first jobs was to remove it to prevent the pond refilling too quickly with debris.

Next for the planting. As many of the new plants (52) were marginals, lots of people focussed on getting those tucked into the shallower areas of Oxleas Pond. Another large group of 23 plants were oxygenators and were tossed into the pond. Finally, there was a handful (4) of deep-water-loving plants, including 3 of our native white water lily. Someone had to wade out into the middle of the pond and push the plants down into the bottom mud - and we had some adventurous volunteers to do that! Luckily, no-one fell over, although one person did take a step too far into the pond and let the water into their wellies.

Although we had intended to cut back some of the trees around the pond a little, we changed our minds mid-session when, while we stopped for tea, we spotted a half dozen or so juvenile birds using it to shelter themselves from the local sparrowhawk. There's so little surface water in the woods that this is the best balance of safety and water access they could find. We also spotted a couple of jays drinking from the pond but they didn’t seem worried by anything.

We ended the session a little early and very dirty, with everyone off home to check for ticks and leeches, and to treat with strong antiseptic every cut that could possibly have met the pond water.

We love our renovated pond, but it’s definitely not safe for paddling!