Hurstmere School

Woodlands Farm

Shooter's Hill · 2.5 miles

The 89-acre Woodlands urban farm lies on the east side of Shooter’s Hill in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, southeast London, just north of the A207. It sits roughly two kilometres south of Plumstead and one and a half kilometres west of Welling, forming part of a protected green corridor that links Eltham, Plumstead and Welling. A small watercourse, the Wogebourne, runs northward across the fields and is fed by several tributaries, adding a natural feature to the landscape. The site borders the Greenwich Equestrian Skills Centre, a legacy of the London Olympic Games, and is managed by the Woodlands Farm Trust, a registered charity. Originally laid out in the early nineteenth century as a 122-acre farm under the Baldock family, the land was bought in 1919 by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society and later operated as a model pig farm. During the Second World War it served briefly as a prisoner-of-war camp. Threatened in the 1980s by a proposed East London River Crossing, the farm was saved after a European-wide campaign and, in 1997, the Co-operative Group granted the Trust a 999-year lease at a peppercorn rent. Today the farm concentrates on conservation, sustainable agriculture and educational activities, hosting regular farm shows and an education centre that welcomes school groups and other visitors. Entry is free and opening times are published on the farm’s listing.

The Tarn

Well Hall · 2.5 miles

A wooded lakeside site on the eastern side of Court Road, opposite Mottingham railway station, offers a mixture of open garden, water and protected wildlife. Covering nine acres in the Royal Borough of Greenwich (postcode SE9 5AQ), the area was once the southern part of the Great Park attached to Eltham Palace, used for royal deer hunting until the English Civil War. After the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich bought the land from the neighbouring Royal Blackheath Golf Club, the public garden opened in 1935 and has remained largely as laid out in the 1930s. The central part of the site surrounds a two-acre lake, historically called Starbuck’s Pond, and provides a circular walk that follows the shoreline, crosses a wooden footbridge and links the two gated entrances. Along the route visitors find a range of benches, a gazebo, a public-toilet block with a veranda shelter and an 18th-century brick ice well that is Grade II listed and viewable through a fenced opening. The park is wheelchair-accessible on most routes, although a few steps remain near the north-west and south-west entrances. Dogs are not permitted to protect the resident birds. Half of the nine-acre area is fenced off as a bird-sanctuary nature reserve, where species such as mallard, Canada goose, rose-ringed parakeet and swan are regularly observed, alongside foxes, squirrels, frogs and bats. The lake supports a small stickleback population and is fed by the Little Quaggy stream. Access is via Court Road; the nearest town is Well Hall, and entry is free.

Winns Common

Plumstead · 3.1 miles

Set within the suburb of Plumstead in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Winn's Common provides a public open space that has been shaped by centuries of human activity. Archaeological evidence points to settlement by ancient Britons, and the area once contained several Bronze Age burial mounds together with Roman artefacts; a surviving tumulus, known as the Winn's Common Tumulus, remains visible today. During the Second World War the common hosted a line of barrage balloons intended to protect the nearby Royal Arsenal at Woolwich from aerial attack. Across Kings Highway a memorial to George Webb, former headmaster of Burrage Grove Boys School in 1896, marks the site of a former drinking fountain whose fittings have since been removed. After the war, prefabricated houses were erected on the common to accommodate displaced residents; these structures were cleared in the late 1950s and the land was replanted as open ground with football pitches. An old hut at the north end, adjacent to Kings Highway, continues to serve as a changing-room facility, equipped with a tin trough and cold taps. Access to Winn's Common is unrestricted, and visitors can make use of the pitches and the modest changing amenities.

Plumstead Common

Plumstead · 3.1 miles

Plumstead Common provides a sizeable green space within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, positioned just south of the town of Plumstead. The park is bounded to the north by Old Mill Road, to the south by Plumstead Common Road and abuts Winn’s Common on its eastern side. Within its grounds, deposits of puddingstone – a conglomerate rock formed around 60 million years ago during a warm period – can be observed, a geological feature otherwise more typical of Hertfordshire. The site also incorporates the remains of an old mill, now part of a public house that bears the same name, and the former Prince of Wales pub stands on the south-west corner, while Plumstead Manor School lies nearby. First recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as “Plumstede”, the area originally referred to a place where plums grew. Throughout the nineteenth century, increasing pressure from housing development linked to the Royal Arsenal led to the sale of common land, prompting local protests in 1876 that culminated in the Plumstead Common Act of 1878, which secured one hundred acres as permanent public open space. The common also hosted the early matches of Royal Arsenal Football Club. Today, it serves as the venue for community events such as the Plumstead Make Merry festival – noted as the longest-running local festival in the borough – and the popular Asian Mela, often likened to an “Asian Notting Hill Carnival”. Access is via the surrounding roads, and as a public park it remains freely available for recreation and sport.

Boer War Memorial

Woolwich · 3.7 miles

The Boer War Memorial in Woolwich is opposite the Royal Artillery Barracks on Grand Depot Road in Woolwich. The memorial marks the deaths of the 18 soldiers of the 61st Battery Royal Field Artillery who died in the Second Boer War. The memorial is a tall thin pink granite obelisk on a square plinth with a three-step base.

Crossness Nature Reserve

Belvedere · 4.3 miles

Covering 25.5 hectares on the historic Thames floodplain, Crossness Nature Reserve lies in the Crossness area of the London Borough of Bexley, close to Belvedere. The site forms part of the Erith Marshes Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation and represents one of the few remaining grazing marshes in London. Its landscape includes the borough’s largest reedbeds, a network of ponds and ditches, scrub and rough grassland. Recorded wildlife comprises around 130 bird species, a notable water-vole population, several rare invertebrates such as five water-beetle species and the nationally scarce Shrill Carder bee, together with plants like Borrer’s saltmarsh grass and frog rush, which was once thought extinct in Kent. The reserve was created in 1994 under a Section 106 planning agreement and is owned and managed by Thames Water, with day-to-day stewardship provided by the RSPB. A Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve group assists with the care of protected zones that are not publicly accessible. The western perimeter abuts the Crossness Sewage Treatment Works and the northern edge borders a Cory-operated waste-management facility. Between 2005 and 2011 the Belvedere Green Links project invested one million pounds in restoring the southern marsh and related infrastructure, funded by the Homes & Communities Agency, the European Regional Development Fund and the Greater London Authority, with Bexley Council as a key stakeholder. In the early 2020s a proposal by Cory for a carbon-capture installation covering roughly 11 % of the reserve was approved in November 2025 despite local opposition.