8Green spaces

Oxhey Woods Local Nature Reserve

Still there

Compare today with Big map →

Drag the round handle to slide between the old map (left) and today (right). On a phone, tap the map once to move it.

Then

When the London County Council's purchase of the Oxhey Place estate was confirmed in 1944, some of the woodland was to be kept, and old wood names such as Old Hangings, Young Hangings, Nanscot Wood and Beck Mason's Wood are still used on the reserve's map.^{5,16,31,191,192,307,308}

Now

About 100 hectares of woodland (Natural England gives 100.21), declared a Local Nature Reserve on 13 June 1997. Natural England's revised list (2026) counts about 92 hectares of it as ancient woodland. A one-kilometre easy-access sculpture trail starts at the reserve's car park.

Bluebells carpeting Oxhey Woods in April — Bluebells in Oxhey Woods in April 2017. © Christine Matthews, Geograph (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Colourful poster headed Oxhey Woods, showing a large tree and a path — A London Underground poster of 1915 by E. McKnight Kauffer, inviting Londoners out to Oxhey Woods. Edward McKnight Kauffer, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Mentioned in

Oxhey Place: The name Oxhey Before the Estate
Farms and fields: The field names Before the Estate
The old woods: What ancient woodland means Before the Estate
The old woods: How we know the woods are old Before the Estate
The old woods: Oxhey Woods, part by part Before the Estate
The old woods: Pond Wood and the smaller woods Before the Estate
The old woods: How the woods were used Before the Estate
The old woods: What the woods are like Before the Estate
The old woods: The nature reserve Before the Estate
The old woods: Wildlife worth knowing Before the Estate
The 1943 Housing Order: The order and its map Before the Estate
The 1943 Housing Order: What the order left out Before the Estate

Position from OpenStreetMap. See Sources and method.