September was a month of hot and dry weather, which was showcased by low water levels across the River Ravensbourne catchment. During this period we took our opportunity to work on the boggy areas to remove encroaching vegetation, like above, which is normally a wet area in Manor Park but had previously been overtaking by sedge, bramble and grass!
The lower water level across the month also helped us access the deeper sections of the rivers. We spent some time in Beckenham Place Park (East side) performing litter picks and clearing areas of the main channel. We found more than 25 golf balls in this stretch, along with parts of an old fireplace surround!
This month we’ve launched our brand new social media account, RiversandPeople_Lewisham, where you can stay up to date with all the work we’ve been doing on the River Ravensbourne, River Quaggy and River Pool.
You will still find our monthly ‘what we’ve been up’ blogs and any information about upcoming sessions on here, but do check out and give us a follow on Instagram to stay in the loop sooner!
Our Instagram account will be managed by one of our wonderful volunteers, Sarah, who is more than happy to help answer your queries or send you Emily’s way for anything you may want to find out.
August brought the volunteer team some hot weather, so being in the river was a pleasant break from the heat! We started the month working on the boardwalk section of Cornmill Gardens, removing plants that had grown up through teh accessible viewing platform then reducing the vegetation height so you can get a clear view of the river. One bonus from our time at Cornmill was we got to watch Lewisham town centre’s resident peregrine falcons flying overhead!
We’ve also continued the job of clearing eel tiles around the catchment, and monitored the areas where we know siltation happens in backwaters and small channels.
We were also very lucky to have Philippa Nicholls, European Eel Officer, from Thames21 come along to our group and present on London’s European Eel population and some of the challenges and obstacles they face within the Ravensbourne Catchment.
In just three easy steps, anybody can help The Rivers Trust get a clearer picture of river health across the UK and Ireland. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Sign up Sign up and download the survey app to your phone before visiting the site. The app will be available on 18th September. Links will be shared by The Rivers Trust, on their social media, and on their website.
Step 2:Take part Pick a riverside location to join others around the country in collecting data about the health of your local river. You can complete the survey at your favourite local spot, or choose to get to know somewhere new!
Visit between the 22nd and the 24th September 2023, and spend just 15 minutes observing and answering the questions on the survey. You’ll tell The Rivers Trust about the things that you see – from wildlife and plants, to the flow speed of the water and whether you can spot any pollution. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, use The Rivers Trust’s handy in-app ID guides for pollution and wildlife.
Step 3: Upload Upload your survey. The Rivers Trust will gather up all of your results and our data specialists will get busy analyzing the information so that The Rivers Trust and other environmental organizations can be better armed in the fight for healthier, wilder rivers.
Autumn/ Winter is when we can get many of our hands on practical tasks done as most of the wildlife on the banks are hunkering down for the colder period. Why not join our Tuesday volunteer sessions? The volunteer session programme has now been released for October to December 2023. Check out the programme HERE. If you would like to get involved in volunteering on Lewisham’s rivers please read through the the River Volunteering web page, and if you have any questions or queries please get in touch with Emily.
The first Sunday in September marked the Grove Park Carnival at Chinbrook Meadows. The event is a family friendly event with a dog show, funfair, parade and a variety of stalls including some that were teaching the public about the River Quaggy and the animals within it. Thames21, Friends of Chinbrook Meadows, The Quekett Microscopical Club and ChART were all in attendance.
Continuing on from last month, we spent the first couple of weeks in July taking part in the 3 Rivers Clean Up. After 3 weeks of being in river we removed over 5000 Himalayan balsam plants from the River Quaggy and River Ravensbourne.
One fantastic sighting when we were downstream of Manor Park was a large European Eel feeding amongst the gravel riverbed. Can you spot it in the photo below?
Whilst in Manor Park it was also wonderful to look at the bug hotels that the 12th North Lewisham Scout Group have been looking after.
Back in 2021 Dr Louise Rondel and colleagues at Goldsmith’s University captured a series of interviews and sounds along the River Quaggy, exploring the soundscape of the urban River Quaggy.
The project strived to understand how the river impacts the local area and vice versa through an interactive app, the public contributed their own field recordings at the participatory workshop and sound walk, and talks from resident scientific and cultural experts, including John Drever and Emma Jackson, about the importance of the river to both the community and local eco-system.
Learn how people interact with the Quaggy and how this heavily engineered South London river is becoming re-naturalised. All done in conjunction with the Quaggy Waterways Action Group (QWAG).
June marks the beginning of the Three Rivers Clean Up, also known as 3RCU, for the London Borough of Lewisham. Rivers & People, Nature’s Gym and various river projects/ user groups combine to make a group effort to remove Himalayan Balsam before it seeds around the banks of the three rivers.
Whilst bashing the Himalayan balsam we also litter pick the channels and take the what3words locations of any other invasive plant species, such as Japanese Knotweed and Giant Hogweed. These plants get treated and tackled by the wider Glendale team, whilst we focus our efforts on the Balsam.
Over the last 2 weeks, the Nature Conservation team has been joined by Sophia who wished to carry out her work experience with us. Here she writes about her time. We wish Sophia well in the future.
Being an A level geography student and an avid environmentalist, I did two weeks of work experience with Nature Conservation Lewisham. Having lived in Lee or Grove Park for all of my life, I feel passionate about the borough I live in and the importance of allowing for young people like myself to support it and help prevent potential future damage to it. This was what inspired me to work with Nature Conservation Lewisham.
The work was hugely varied and involved working in a variety of situations including working with primary school aged children in public green spaces, cleaning rivers, and removing invasive plant species from riverbanks. Working outdoors allowed for me to gain practical experience and be able to face and resolve potential challenges such the impacts of the weather and finding unexpected numbers of a plant species. I thoroughly enjoyed the variety and unpredictable nature of the work in that each day we would be working on different tasks each day and not visiting one place more than once. This allowed for me to plan ahead and demonstrate the skills and ability to complete tasks of strongly different disciplines; one day we could be waist length deep in mud and river water removing Himalayan Balsam, and the next we would be in a park counting and observing birds. How different this is to most people’s perceptions of work: 9-5 hours at a desk doing a fairly predictable job in a centrally heated building wearing a suit!
The people I was working with were friendly and welcoming (special thanks to Jess and Emily!) and I immediately felt like one of them and part of their projects as soon as I started work at Nature Conservation Lewisham and felt that it was a very supportive working environment.
I wish the organisation and its people all the best for the future and (despite the awkwardness of having a large proportion of cold and dirty river water enter my wader when I was in the river) feel proud to have had the chance to work with them and feel that this would be a unique and interesting opportunity to reflect on and relate to when I complete my A levels and go on to do a human geography degree in the not-so-distant future.
Rivers and People 