Today’s post is by Dr David Dixon who has wide experience as a primary school Headteacher, and who is now an NAEE Trustee. As with all our blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Association.
Gorne, but not forgotten!
In the London Borough of Lewisham, about 6 miles from the City of London and a similar distance from Buckingham Palace, lies a few acres of undeveloped land called Gorne Wood. It was acquired from the nearby railway company over 20 years ago and for the 100 years previously had been used by the local scout group which had a hut on the site. The new owner evicted the scouts and the wood was abandoned to fly tippers, drug addicts and other nefarious activities. Then last year the owner applied for planning permission to build housing on the site- a no-brainer one might think because of the chronic shortage of homes in London.
However, this ignored the fact that Gorne Wood is something very special. It’s a fragment of the Great North Wood that occupied most of what is now south London and is, therefore, officially ‘ancient’ i.e. been around for at least 400 years. It’s rich in flora and fauna and probably has the oldest specimen of Field Maple in the whole of London. It links to the Buckthorne Cutting Nature Reserve, one of four such reserves that lie alongside the railway line that runs from Blackfriars to Crystal Palace and other points south (or to use the local vernacular, ‘sarf’). Buckthorne is used by the surrounding community and schools as a venue for Forest Schools and outdoor events. These allow a deeply urban and often disadvantaged population to experience the delights and health benefits of truly wild nature, rather than the manicured and relatively sterile local parks.
This is where I come in. Having been a headteacher and latterly a consultant to Lewisham schools for environmental education (mostly through developing the local history and geography curriculum with them), I began running workshops at Buckthorne and got to know of the campaign to save Gorne Wood. I was blown away by its provenance. A Roman road runs through it called the Lewes Way which joins Watling Street (Old Kent Road) a couple of miles away. There are the remains of the old Surrey Canal which preceded the railway line. An emissary for Abraham Lincoln wrote about the wood in his journal and this man was a leading light in advocating universal suffrage. He used to stay with a farming family called Colgate, who owned the wood and who themselves were equality activists. They had to flee to America, where part of the family founded the famous toothpaste dynasty. The founder of the UK Woodcraft Folk used to camp there with the local scouts and found inspiration from its habitat. There are mineral deposits poking out of the ground that only occur in this area. Then of course there’s all the previously mentioned unique habitat and biodiversity.
The vision for the ‘Save Gorne Wood’ campaign is to rectify the damage and manage the land in order to preserve and enhance its nature and then to incorporate it into the nature reserve. This in itself will help the existing reserve, because it’s been a victim of its own success and needs extra fallow time to regenerate, particularly after intense Forest School usage.
A few schools have also taken up the cudgel of the main campaign and done significant fund-raising to help the fighting fund. To its credit, the local council put a stop on the development application for a year to give the community a chance to buy the wood. The target is £100k and at time of writing (Jan 2023) this has reached about £60k, but the year is almost up!
The value for the schools has been the opportunity to gain cross-curricular knowledge of the wood mainly through experiential learning, enriched further by being involved in the campaign itself. This has given them an insight into why it’s under threat, the views of various protagonists and why most people want to save it. The children have embraced the opportunity of using their agency to be active participants, rather than passive learners. They’ve written letters to councillors, contributed to campaign videos and galvanised support from their own parents. Taken together, this is Environmental Education par excellence!
Below is a mapping exercise I undertook to show the schools the potential areas of learning.
The direct involvement of schools has helped the campaign to emphasise that the wood needs to be saved for future generations. It also facilitated the involvement of Ecosia, the global search engine. Luckily their UK Head of Policy lives nearby and got their development fund to contribute £20k and they are publicising the campaign worldwide. They share the view that Gorne Wood isn’t just a local issue, but has national and international signficance. If it disappears all the history links disappear with it.
Along with many other local authorities, Lewisham Council declared a Climate Emergency. We are reminding them that Gorne Wood keys into this, not only because of the carbon sequestration afforded by the habitat, but also because of it’s potential to link in a practical way to the local education provision and community health. Local council officers are often siloed, which means that sustainability can be seen in relatively narrow terms through subjects such as transport emissions or home energy consumption. Gorne Wood can help to join the dots.
The Gorne Wood campaign also shows everyone involved that rather than being sidelined, Environmental Education has never been so important and that it can and should thrive in spite of a perceived restrictive National Curriculum. Notice the word perceived. As the poet Richard Lovelace said: ‘’Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage”. In the context of the wood project described above, If school leaders have the will to sanction Environmental Education, then it happens! If it’s in the form described here, then it moves beyond an ‘academic’ experience.
Notes
For further information about the Gorne Wood campaign see The Fourth Reserve Foundation, and for a fascinating insight into the history of the Great North Wood see ‘The Wood that Built London: A Human History of the Great North Wood’, by C.J. Schuler. Ecosia plants a tree for each search and funds environmental projects worldwide.
Stop Press The target was reached and surpassed following interest from the likes of the writer Robert MacFarlane, but there are still many legal hurdles to overcome before the wood is brought back to public ownership and management- watch this space!
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David can be contacted at daviddixon649@gmail.com