Friends of Spring Park Wood

History

It is shown in the Doomsday records of 1086 and was originally known as 'New Parke' up to and around the time of the Tudors and was still shown as that in the year of 1586.

When the first official map of the area was drawn up in April of 1632 it had changed its identity to 'Spring Parke.'

The timber harvested from this Forest helped supply London with a lot of its needs, and was crowned “The woods yielding a quick growth of Underwood” in 1790.

In 1801 the population of West Wickham only stood at 436 and most of these people worked in the large houses of the area or mainly on the land, doing forestry or agricultural jobs.

spring park wood history

The drinking fountain from the 1930's was placed back by the friends after 30 years of absence.

The main loss of woodlands occurred in the 1930s when urban expansion really took off.

The Spring Park housing estate complete with its own Golf course, hence Links View Road was constructed.

Then during the war years pre-fabs were put up on the golf coarse to accommodate bombed out families from London, and finally in the 1960s, the Shrublands estate was constructed.

So with this going on in Shirley, plus the massive expansion happening in West Wickham, this fragment of Spring Park Wood is extremely precious to all of us today.