Ruislip Woods and National Nature Reserve

Ruislip Woods, now a National Nature Reserve, is a substantial fragment of the formerly extensive Ruislip Park, at one time comparable to Enfield Chase (q.v.). There are records that Richard de Cliffe, Receiver of the Archbishopric of Canterbury was ordered in 1270 to deliver five live does from Harrow Wood to the Prior of Ruislip to stock his Park. Sale of wood and pannage provided 25% of the Manor's income in 1289; there was tile-making in the Tile Kiln Lane area and in Northwood from the C14th-C19th. In the C18th the woods were still intensively worked: 30 men were recorded working Park Wood making hoops and peeling bark (GLRO Acc 249, 1748). The park remained a working and hunting landscape well into the C19th with gamekeepers' cottages built in c.1875 by Lawrence J Baker, who rented shooting rights and raised pheasants on his Haydon Hall estate (q.v.). By the late C19th, advertisements in local newspapers were recording unsustainable sales of maiden trees and asset stripping, and in 1932-36 the estate passed into public ownership, with Mad Wood and Copse Wood estates acquired by MCC in 1935. A remnant of Ruislip Common of 16.38ha, known as Large Poor's Field, is registered common land.

Ruislip Woods chiefly comprises oak standards with hornbeam coppice, which are rare now, and perhaps the best example of the type surviving. There are significant lengths of boundary ditches and banks relating to inclosures and boundaries, many marked with 2-3ft high stub hornbeams of great age. Within the site is Ruislip Lido (q.v.), formed from a lake originally made in 1811 as a feeder to the Grand Junction Canal, which inundated the hamlet of Park Hearne. Ruislip Woods were preserved as a result of Green Belt legislation and designated a SSSI in 1950. The Nature Reserve was established at the north end of the estate in 1959.

In the woods to the north west of the Lido was a building known as the Battle of Britain House, which burnt down in 1984. It was built in 1905-7 for Josef Conn on land leased in Copse Wood and from 1907-14 it was run as a Health Hydro by Mrs Conn and then from 1916-40 was a private house. In 1940 it was requisitioned by the Ministry of Works and leased to the American Secret Service and in 1948 purchased by MCC as a memorial to those who died in the Battle of Britain. It was originally intended to be a Memorial Youth Centre and was opened as such by Victor Stanyon who ran courses here. In 1975 it was renamed Ruislip College, and later saved from closure by Mr Seal who leased it and ran community courses here until it was burnt down. In 1993 the site was taken back into Copse Wood, and it is currently not accessible to the public.

A 100-year Long Term Management Plan was adopted in 1982 building on experience of Ruislip Woods Management Advisory Group and LB Hillingdon Woodland Managers. The initial management concentrated on reintroduction of coppicing, aiming to create a system for recording and retrieving all available information about the site, improving public access and developing community involvement.