Selsdon Nature Reserve

About
Gallery
Parking
Poo bins?
Self-guided walk

About

Selsdon Nature Reserve, also known as the “Bird Sanctuary”, is a 200 acre green space on the outskirts of the London Borough of Croydon. It’s owned by the National Trust but managed by Croydon Council with the help of a dedicated and very active group of volunteers, the Friends of Selsdon Wood (FSW). They’ve produced a map of the main paths, which I have embedded below, and an information leaflet summarising their work.

A detailed history of Selsdon Nature Reserve can be read about on the FSW website but in 1923, the area now occupied by the reserve was a private estate. The landowner, a man called Noakes who has a path in the reserve named after him, died and the land was sold off. The local community campaigned to protect and preserve the area and over the next few years, raised money to purchase the land with ownership vested in the National Trust but with the then Corporation of Croydon and then Urban District Council of Coulsdon and Purley jointly undertaking responsibility for maintenance.

Today, the reserve is part of London’s protected Greenbelt and, along with Farleigh Golf Course and Kings Wood, it is an important wildlife corridor. Its ancient woodland is dominated by oak, beech, ash and sweet chestnut. The coppiced woodland is mainly hazel. Both are rich in wildlife and home to badgers, bats and birds. I have seen deer in here several times and always keep Mike and Jett on lead in the woods as a result. The meadows host butterflies and insects and there are great spreads of bluebells in the spring – these delicate flowers thrive here due to visitors not descending upon the reserve en-masse like more well-known bluebell sites.

The field by the car park – known as Green Hill – boasts a butterfly bank. This came out of the 2021 Brilliant Butterflies Project to create more wildflower areas for butterflies and other insects. The FSW care for the bank and keep track of the many species that visit it.

Selsdon Nature Reserve is home to a number of carvings / wooden sculptures. The first is of a bear that stands beside the car park and was carved as a spectator event during the 1988 County Show that was held on the site. It was carved by a then-local tree surgeon, Selwyn Smith, who has since relocated to Wales. There are a further four, much more recent carvings. Alasdair Craig of Essex Chainsaw Carvings created The Owls (March 2024), The Green Man (March 2024) and The Woodland Scene (May 2024). Then in April 2025, local wood sculptor Lorcan O’Byrne created The Badger.

Gallery: What’s it like here?

Parking

Selsdon Nature Reserve has a car park just off the Old Farleigh Road with space for about eight cars, but the walk on this page starts from a footpath leading into the reserve from Kingfisher Gardens, a residential street on the edge of Selsdon Vale. I’ve opted for this rather than the main car park as I once got back to my car and found the gates had been shut so I am jumpy about parking there now (it was my own fault, of course; the times are advertised at the gate!)

WHAT3WORDs: https://w3w.co/radar.votes.hails

GOOGLEMAPS LINK: https://maps.app.goo.gl/p6m4qja6NKfns5j97

NEAREST POSTCODE: CR2 8QY

Poo bins?

There are a couple of poo bins at the start of the walk just before you go through the gate into the reserve.

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Self-guided walk

Here is a Footpath app route from the footpath into Selsdon Nature Reserve from Kingfisher Gardens. Also on AllTrails. This walk takes in the four carvings that were created during 2024 and 2025 but not the 1988 bear sculpture (if you want to see this, you’ll find it right by the car park so look at the map and find your way there). Most of this walk is through the woods, although it skirts a couple of fields to get to them.

Length: approximately 2.2 miles/3.5 km
Terrain: Fields and woodland. There is a slope up to the woodland and the rest of the walk is broadly flat until the end, when you have to go back down the slope. The fields are grassy and the woods are mainly mud paths, which used to get very churned up in the winter but the FSW has taken steps to make these less muddy with ballast/shingle added to the worst areas.
Stiles/kissing gates? No stiles, one gate at the entrance to the reserve

Take the footpath from the cul-de-sac that is Kingfisher Gardens up past the two poo bins and through the gate in the railings to enter Selsdon Nature Reserve.

Once through the hawthorn bushes, turn right and walk along the edge of the field. At the corner, go straight ahead (passing a post with a green up arrow) through this little wooded patch into the next field.

Continue straight ahead along the bottom of this second field but when you get to the far corner this time, turn left and walk up the slope, again with bushes on your right.

Ignore paths off to the right and when you get to the top of the field, pass out of it on the footpath to the immediate right of a wide gate that has a sign for Jubilee Plantation. You’ll now have a fence on your left for a short way. At the junction of paths, turn right and head up a short slope with a big tree stump on the right.

When you get to the crosspaths with a post that has red and green arrows on, turn left. This stony path is called Vincent Avenue (and, incidentally, if you look up to your right just as you turn left, there’s a sign attached to a tree.) At the fork next to the tree stumps, post and bench, continue ahead on the right-hand path.

When you get to the next fork, which has a post with red and green arrows on it, turn left. Ahead of you, you’ll see a big tree and the path forks again. Go right here and pass another post, this time with just a red arrow on it. This is called Broom Path (although I’ve only seen that on the FSW map, not on any signs on any trees.) Ignore the path to the left opposite a tree with multiple trunks coming out of one main trunk (it looks like a palm with fingers) and continue ahead, passing another red arrow post.

At the end of the path where there’s a fence ahead and a post with red and green arrows, turn left. This is the Farleigh Border path and behind the fence is Farleigh Golf Club. Walk down this path keeping your eyes peeled for a number of bits of a fallen tree trunk. On your left by these chunks of trunk, you’ll find The Green Man carving – it’s facing away from you so you do have to look out for it.

When you’re done looking at the carving, keep going. You’ll pass a bench on the left and then get to a junction next to another post with red and green arrows pointing to the left. Turn left here. This path is called West Gorse. As you head down it, there’ll be a big dip on the left with a fallen tree across it.

Presently, you’ll arrive at the (now fenced off) pond at Linden Glade. A lot of work has gone into restoring the pool and establishing plants to support it.

Pass the bench and then turn right onto a wide path. This is still actually West Gorse. Continue straight ahead. After some way, you’ll pass a sign on the right that reads “West Gorse”. Ignore the path off to the right and follow the path as it bears around to the left.

Almost immediately, on the left you’ll come to The Owls wood carving.

When done looking at the carving, keep going straight on this wide path, it’s called Leafy Grove. Pass a large tree stump and keep an eye out for a smaller path off to the left just after an evergreen coniferous tree which has a length of fallen tree trunk underneath it.

Turning off the main path here, you’re now on a little path called Bluebell Grove – and the reason it’s called this is evident during April and early May. Stay going straight on this path, crossing over a junction of paths with two benches to the right and a stump in the middle and another junction of paths with a bench to the left. It’s just ahead all the way to the end of the path, where it emerges from the woods at a field.

When you enter the field, turn right and walk along the hawthorn hedges until you come to a gap in the foliage with a bench next to it. Return into the woods here and follow the path along a low fence until that comes to an end.

You’ll get to a cross paths where the way ahead leads out to another field. Turn right here on the path that runs inside but along the edge of the woods (i.e. the field to your left can be seen through the trees and scrub). This is called Steven’s Walk.

At the cross paths, where there’s another way into the field to your left, continue straight ahead. Shortly you’ll come to the Badger carving that was completed in April 2025.

Continue past the badger and at the next junction of paths, continue straight ahead towards a large stump that’s in the middle of the path. As you cross the junction, if you look to your right you’ll see a little wooden toadstool.

You’re now on Court Wood Grove and I actually really dislike this path. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think it’s because it’s so open and charmless (in my opinion) and there are just much nicer paths in the reserve. Anyway, follow this ahead and when you get to the cross paths with the tree stumps and bench (on the left), go straight across. You’re only going a little way up here as you’ll come to the carving The Woodland Scene very soon. Have a look at it and then about turn to return to the cross paths and the bench. I just don’t like this end of the woods.

So, when you’re back at that cross paths with all the stumps, the bench is now on your right (with a sign for Court Wood Grove attached to the tree above it). There’s also a post with a green arrow. Turn right onto this smaller path. It’s called Beech Grove.

Follow Beech Grove down to the next cross paths by another post with a green arrow. Ahead there’s a bench and also a sign on a tree that reads “Avis Grove”. Go straight over here and continue straight ahead.

Beech Grove then comes to another cross paths with a post ahead that has a green arrow pointing left. Turn left here. This is called Broad Walk.

Follow it straight ahead and emerge out into a field.

Turn right and walk down the right-hand side of the field to where you’ll see the gap in the bushes ahead. This is the way you came into the reserve at the start of the walk. Pass through the gap in the hawthorn bushes and exit via the gate to get back to Kingfisher Gardens.