Lavender Pond Community gardening with The Conservation Volunteers

Lavender Pond Nature Park was created in 1981 and is one of the oldest urban nature reserves in the country. The main feature is of course the pond itself with over an acre of freshwater and extensive beds of water lilies. A boardwalk allows access through extensive stands of reed, a colourful marsh area and a wet Alder woodland.

The park was created on the site of an old timber pond and the dock walls and locks still remain.

The nature park demonstrates the merits of a creative approach to urban nature conservation and has won many awards for access, wildlife value and environmental improvement. In 1982 it was the first created ecological park in London to gain the Environmental Improvement award and to become the only park with recommended status for people with disabilities in the Sensory Trusts Discovering Wildlife directory. The park became a designated Local Nature Reserve in 2006.

The park provides a resource for creative ecology and conservation. The site demonstrates how new habitats can be created for both wildlife and local people allowing contact with nature and a place where people can develop appreciation for the environment through community involvement, education and training.

The site has a remarkable variety of wildlife. Reed Warblers can be found nesting in the Reeds and even relatively rare creatures such as the Red Eyed Damselfly have colonised the park a demonstration of how important urban wildlife sanctuaries can be even in the heart of central London.

For a nature area only created 27 years ago the site is very well established. The site is wardened on a full time basis. A grant from the London Borough of Southwark year covers approximately half the running costs. The rest is met through project work and small grants many from the Friends of Lavender Pond a group of local residents and other supporters who have fundraised for the park for many years.

Lavender Pond is a key demonstration site acknowledged as far a field as Japan and Korea as a prime example of good practice in the design of new nature parks. Lavender Pond has laid down some ground rules for new urban ecological sites such as the Bow Creek Ecology Park, the new Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park and the Wildfowl Centre at Barnes