A walk in the woods: the Great North Wood or what's left of it. This sylvan scene is in Sydenham, south London. Go back several centuries and the North Wood stretched from New Cross to Croydon. It still persists in the form of thirty or so fragments which have survived by virtue of being made into parks as the expansion of London replaced trees with streets and houses.

 No doubt the North Wood was once part of the prehistoric 'wildwood' which covered most of this island. That landscape was modified by our ancient ancestors from the Neolithic era onward. Certainly the North Wood was a heavily used resource for timber and grazing even when it was extant.

 The wood or rather woods that we find today contain some ancient trees but most of the growth is recent i.e. of the past century or two. None the less they provide a living connection to the distant past.

 That connection is also apparent in some of the place names hereabouts. Norwood for example and Penge which is thought to derive from the Celtic "Penceat" meaning edge of the wood.