GET INVOLVED

We have a schedule of events for the year ahead. Join us on one of our practical days which offer the chance to learn new skills and get your hands dirty doing conservation tasks. Come and learn more about species in the park on our wildlife walks or become part of the Friends Committee which meets to discuss the functioning of the group.

FoSNCP hold a practical workday on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month and every Tuesday morning and/or afternoon to undertake conservation projects within the park.

At present we’re meeting at the council compound – the locked gates right by the tramline, on the vehicle access road at 10 AM. We usually finish around midday and enjoy a hot drink & biscuits.

Training and tools are provided. Please wear clothes suitable for outdoor activity and the weather, bring your own gloves if you have them.

We recommend sturdy footwear. Activities are subject to change at short notice.

If you would like to register to join us, please contact us by email – friendsofsncp@gmail.com. We can then let you know if we can offer you a space on one of the workdays.

WORKDAYS 2025

For previous years – see the archive!

6th January 2026

Our first workday of 2026 on a beautiful frosty morning which turned to snow showers mid morning. We were continuing with coppicing this winter’s section of blackthorn as part of our butterfly conservation project. Coppicing blackthorn is not everyone’s favourite task because it is very thorny and difficult to process into manageable habitat piles. However, reminding ourselves of the benefits of improving this habitat for the Brown Hairstreak butterfly keeps us going. 

24th January 2026

3rd and 10th February 2026

Our Tuesday workdays throughout winter have very much been taken up with coppicing blackthorn. Despite this thorny subject, our volunteers keep coming back which is dedication for you! Maybe it’s because they appreciate the importance of coppicing the blackthorn as part of our butterfly conservation project. We have mentioned in previous reports how we are improving the habitat for the Brown Hairstreak butterfly. Once we’ve finished this last section of blackthorn, we will return to the first section we coppiced a few years and start again next year. It should be much easier now that we’ve done so much to get the blackthorn under control.

14th February 2026

We were in luck with the weather today as beautiful blue skies and sunshine replaced the rain. Our task for today was, you’ve guessed it, blackthorn coppicing! There is definitely light at the end of the blackthorn tunnel – we could literally see each other through the gaps. The dead hedge which we are making with the cuttings is getting longer. This hedge will help protect the birds on the wetlands meadow where there are gaps in the hedge along the seasonal path. We will be laying some sections to close these gaps but will have to plant new trees where the existing ones cannot be laid as the wood is dead. To stabilise the hedge, we used stakes that we made from some of the coppiced blackthorn and cut points into the end to make it easier to put them into the ground.

24th February 2026

A change from blackthorn coppicing today saw us head to this winter’s willow coppice coupe near platform 3 at the lake. Most of the coppicing has been done by TCV with some help from the Friends. There was still a small area to finish to the left of the path that runs down to the platform. However, the final task is to keep building up the dead hedge around these coupes to protect the wildlife that lives in and around the lake from unwanted visitors. Where possible, we pleached willow and laid it into the hedge. This will prolong the life of the dead hedge having some living material amongst it. TCV were going to be working in the same area over the following two days so would continue with the same task.

1st March 2026

No Saturday workday this weekend as we had our AGM but, instead, we held a whole day tree planting session on the Sunday. We were very pleased to have a great turn-out despite the rather inclement weather. We have been given free trees by CPRE London, the majority being hazel, hornbeam and some hedgerow trees such as dogwood and hawthorn. Ian’s plan is to create blocks of coppice coupes which (for the hazel) will be mature enough in 7-10 years to coppice. The hornbeam will need a little longer, say 10-12 years. The blocks will be coppiced on a rotational basis with the stems being used for stakes for fencing and hedge laying. We began with the hazel trees, planting them at a distance of around 2.5 metres from each other alongside the Ryelands Field area of the park.

10th March 2026

After Tree Planting Day comes after-care. We don’t want all that hard work planting the trees to go to waste when the young trees are smothered with soft vegetation and cow parsley as the weather warms up.  To prevent this, we create a large halo around each tree clearing vegetation and then adding wood chip mulch to help suppress weeds and retain moisture.  There are a lot of trees so we’ve made a start with today’s workday but there will be more to do on subsequent workdays.

14th March 2026

For today’s workday, we were joined by a group of volunteers from Croydon Mountaineers. Tree planting was the task again but on the other side of the path from last time and in Ryelands field which is now part of the Country Park. Another team of corporate volunteers from AECOM had already planted a large number of Hornbeam on 11th March. Again, Ian’s plan is to create these coppice coupes for the future although the Hornbeam will grow less quickly than the Hazel trees. Four of us continued planting the rest of the Hornbeam. The rest of the group planted two staggered lines of hedgerow trees to create a clear boundary for the coppice coupe.

24th and 28th March 2026

Our Warden, Ian, was on holiday for a week so left us with a list of instructions for our workday tasks in his absence. For both days, we had plenty to do along the seasonal path which runs alongside La Motes meadow. One of our volunteers bravely tackled the clay soil along the right hand side of the path (from 5 ways) and planted the last lot of hawthorne trees filling gaps in the hedge that is taking shape. Many of the hedgerow trees along the path are maturing well, having been planted a few years ago. Now that the spring vegetation is growing, some aftercare is needed to prevent these trees being smothered. A few volunteers got down on their kneeling mats to clear a metre wide halo around the trees while others cleared vegetation from around the roots of the laid hedge. The final task on the list was to create some dead hedges to fill gaps leading into La Motes meadow. These gaps will eventually be filled with hedgerow trees but until then, we need to discourage visitors and their dogs from entering this sensitive habitat and disturbing wildlife. We used blackthorn stakes as supports and filled the hedges with the blackthorn cuttings from this winter’s coppicing. 

Tuesday 31st March

With Ian back from holiday, we returned to the ‘seasonal’ path for today’s tasks. We’d previously applied for disease resistant Elm trees through a scheme run by Elms4London and had been given two mature trees about 3 metres in height. Ian had decided to plant them on the La Motes meadow side towards the end of the seasonal path to replace Elms that had succumbed to Dutch Elm disease. Four of our volunteers were tasked with doing this. A couple more volunteers pollarded branches on some of the oak trees in the meadow which were preventing light getting onto the laid hedge. The rest of us finished making dead hedges to fill gaps in the existing hedge towards the start of the seasonal path.

14th April 2026

Saturday 25th April

5th May 2026

9th May 2026

12th May 2026

19th May 2026

26th May 2026