This September, we’re excited to announce the launch of Letting the Light In, an exciting new project aimed at revitalising the Chiswick House woodland areas to protect their biodiversity and ensure a healthy, flourishing ecosystem for years to come.

Generously funded by Rewild London, supported by the Mayor of London in partnership with the London Wildlife Trust, Letting the light in is designed to boost biodiversity, protect trees, and better support the native birds, insects and mammals that live in the CHGT grounds and local area.

The 65-acre gardens at Chiswick House are home to two wooded areas, where gardeners and volunteers regularly undertake small-scale maintenance work like coppicing, felling small trees and removing scrub.

Right now, however, these areas are overgrown and unbalanced, with invasive species like Holly, Cherry Laurel and Rhododendron overshadowing other plant life, limiting sunlight, impacting the health of mature trees and reducing habitat variety. To tackle this, the Letting the Light In project focuses on a large-scale, ambitious programme of work, clearing several overgrown areas and reintroducing light and space to the areas that need it most.

Visitors will also be able to get involved in the project themselves, with a series of informative woodland walks and family-friendly woodland volunteering sessions taking place this autumn.

Rosie Fyles, Head of Gardens at Chiswick House, said:

We’re immensely excited about the launch of this important new project. The ‘Letting the light in’ initiative will help us protect the Chiswick House woodlands, opening up vital clearings, creating new habitats and boosting the number and variety of native species that make their home here.

Promoting biodiversity and protecting our native wildlife is at the heart of everything we do at Chiswick House & Gardens, and this project marks an exciting new chapter for our conservation work, ensuring the gardens here will remain a sanctuary for wildlife, and a lasting, nature-rich green space for everyone to enjoy, for many years to come.

A diversity of habitats: why this work is needed

Life thrives on diversity, and to support a full and thriving population of mammal, bird, insect, fungi and plant life, an environment must have a range of habitats – and this is especially true of woodland.

Traditional mixed woodland, many thousands of years ago, would have naturally had this, thanks to the impact of native grazing mammals, with thick and shaded layers on the woodland floor, mid-level habitat on the trunks of different species of trees, patches of foliage and dappled light created by trees of different heights and ages, and warmer, brighter areas nearer the tree crowns and canopy.

These days, however, active management is needed to ensure that the conditions that best support a wood’s natural diversity remain in place.

The Letting the light in project is therefore vital to sustaining the existing wildlife in the gardens, which includes hedgehogs, several bat species, a wide range of birds, butterflies and beetles, and more, as well as encouraging more species to make their home here.

Working with guidance from expert organizations like the Woodland Trust, we are committed to safeguarding this unique environment for future generations of wildlife.

Key steps in the project include:

• Undertaking detailed surveys of the woodlands
• Drawing on the expertise of several partners and planning works to begin a new approach to management with biodiversity in mind
• Removing dominant invasive species (like Holly, Laurel and Rhododendron)
• Removing or reducing self-sown trees and shrubs that are inhibiting existing mature trees
• Developing new dead hedges and habitat piles
• Planting new trees, shrubs and bulbs
• Managing areas for biodiversity including glades.

Regular visitors and local residents should be aware that, as the work begins, it might appear alarming and somewhat destructive, as teams begin cutting away areas of large foliage, clearing spaces within the woods and removing some plants and shrubs.

There will be noise, from the work parties, as well as some taped-off areas, with some temporary restrictions for visitors.

Please don’t worry, though: across the next five years and beyond, the work we’re doing on this site will have tangible, visible benefits, for our wildlife, our loyal visitors and our local community.

Long-term, the carefully planned changes will result in healthier trees, more diverse wildlife habitats, and a thriving woodland ecosystem.

John Tucker, Senior Relationship Development Manager, Ambassador, Woodland Trust, said:

Chiswick House’s ‘Letting the light in’ initiative is an encouraging example of how carefully planned woodland management can protect trees, increase biodiversity and provide precious, much-needed habitat for our native birds, invertebrates and mammals.

The Woodland Trust is committed to protecting the UK’s woods and trees, preventing the loss of irreplaceable habitat and nature – and it’s vital that parks and green spaces in London, as well as more rural areas, play their part in this conservation work.

I look forward to seeing the benefits of this project – healthier trees, more spaces for wildlife and a thriving woodland ecosystem – emerge across the next few years and beyond.

From March next year, CHGT will also begin measuring the project’s long-term impact on wildlife, encouraging members of the public to get involved with a new on-site wildlife recording and monitoring scheme. Keep an eye out for more news on this soon!

Xanthe Arvanitakis, Director of Chiswick House and Gardens, said:

With so many people in our city lacking access to green space, we’re proud of how Chiswick House and Gardens provides access to nature, for everyone, every day of the year. But the relationship is a two-way one: it’s crucial we protect and cherish the precious trees and wildlife we have in our gardens. Doing this can sometimes mean taking bold action – and we’re very grateful to Rewild London for enabling this important, transformative work to go ahead.

• Two guided woodland walks will take place this autumn, alongside a ‘Gardening together’ volunteer session, open to all this half-term. 
• Because of the scale of the project, CHGT has been diligent about backing up its plans with expert advice and research, and have commissioned a number of conservation experts to carry out tree, ecological and wildlife surveys ahead of beginning work. You can download these reports to read here.