On Tuesday, 21. January, 2025 from 10 am to noon, our Environment and Biodiversity group will be working in Walden Woods, improving the wet woodland. Activities will include:

* Removing holly saplings from stream banks
* Building dead hedges
* Clearing the stream

If you’d like to be part of this amazing group, just turn up! There’s plenty to do, even if digging and planting isn’t your thing.

We’ll meet by the FOCRG container in Walden Recreation Ground at 10 am. Please bring gardening gloves.

Walden Recreation Ground, Victoria Rd, Chislehurst BR7 6DF

Past Events

What a Pawsome Day

Sunday, June 2nd, Friends of Chislehurst Recreation Grounds hosted the first-ever Chislehurst Plant and Dog Show. With a sunny day and a turnout of 800 people, the event featured beautiful flowers, exciting dog competitions, food stalls, and more. We had 69 dogs competing, each one a winner in our eyes.

Welcome to Chislehurst Rec station!

Please make sure you have a valid ticket before you board the train.

Our friendly staff will be on hand to help you with train times, tickets and other information you may require for your journey.

We are so excited to see our ticket office finally in place

The ticket office and the new path were made possible with a LBB grant we were fortunate to receive earlier this year.

The grant was a part of LBB’s HM the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and as the criteria was “community led projects that improve our green spaces” it meant our playground project was perfect.

The total cost for our project was nearly £21,000 of which the grant covers £17,000. The remaining £4,000 is covered by us - Friends of Chislehurst Recreation Ground and Chislehurst Society.

Green Flag 2023

We are absolutely delighted to tell you that we have retained our Green Flag. We are so proud of our gardening group who have worked incredibly hard to achieve this. Also a huge thank you to idverde UK for all their help. The Green Flag Award is the highest recognised standard of excellence for parks and outdoor spaces. The flag which comes with this award is now flying over our playground

London In Bloom Awards 2022

Thanks to our amazing gardening group, we received OUTSTANDING in the “It’s Your Neighbourhood Award”. Well done to the whole team who collectively spend 20+ hours a week making the Rec. look stunning. Special thanks to William and Robin, our gardening group stalwarts, for representing FOCRG at the award ceremony.

Did you know that we have an Environment and Biodiversity Group?

These fabulous people meet 1st Sunday of every month to tackle projects such as:

• Creating our natural play area in Whytes Wood

• Cutting invasive holly in the bird sanctuary

• Maintaining our hedgehog Highway

• Creating wildlife meadows

Next Sunday, 2nd October from 10am - noon, they will be prep and plant wildflowers in our bee corridor in Walden Rec.

If you want to be a part of this fabulous group, just turn up! If digging and planting isn’t for you, there are plenty of autumn tasks that need doing. These tasks include: Aerating the flower beds to allow worms and other insects to get to work and cutting back sun damaged bushes.

We will meet by the scouts compound at 10am. Bring gardening gloves.

We now have two table tennis tables in the rec! You can pick up bats and balls from the Roost, or bring your own. Below, FOCRG chair Barbara Arora explains how this development has come about:

Last Hurrah for the CPFA

Who? I hear you ask. 

CPFA stands for Chislehurst Playing Field Association, a charitable trust set up in 1964 by a group of community spirited Chislehurst Residents who wanted to provide a sports field and changing facility for the people of Chislehurst.  They invested their funds in War Stocks earning a steady 3% and became a registered charity on April 23rd 1965. Sadly we don’t have many details of those original trustees so if anyone has memories of them, FOCRG would love to hear from you.  

Unfortunately suitable land was not found, so in 1987 a request was made to the Charity Commission to change the terms of the trust. The new terms permitted grants to support sporting activity for anyone living, training or playing in Chislehurst. 

Over the years, successive trustees of this low key charity awarded grants to support local football, rugby, cricket, hockey and lacrosse, as well as individuals training for athletic disciplines.  More recently Chislehurst sports and youth clubs have benefitted from awards for sports kit, a white lining machine, cricket nets and covers, tennis court fence repairs, mowers and portable floodlights to name just a few. 

However, on the whole the CPFA was unknown and requests for grants which met the terms of the trust were limited. The trustees were beginning to wonder whether it was even feasible to continue running the charity.  Then in 2010 proposals were put forward by the newly formed Friends of Chislehurst Recreation Ground and FC Elmstead to improve Chislehurst Rec. The CPFA Trustees thought these larger scale projects might be compatible with the original objectives of the Trust and asked FOCRG for more information.

The rest as they say is history! Over the last 10 years the CPFA contributed a total of £15000 towards the pitch drainage improvements and £50,000 towards the new pavilion, as well as being major funders for the all ability roundabout and nest swing  in the new playground. 

The final CPFA Trustees meeting was held on March 5th 2019 when it  was agreed that the remaining balance of £8974.50 should be awarded to FOCRG to help fund outdoor table tennis tables in Chislehurst Rec.  The longest serving trustee, Mr Tony Wells proposed a toast to the founders and the CPFA was formally wound up.  Trustees, namely Tony Wells, Nick Burne, Angela Scott, Alison Stammers, Covill and Barbara Arora had completed their duties. 

So the installation of two table tennis tables this week really is the final chapter in the CPFA story. The Charity Commission is satisfied that the fund has been invested in ways that honour the spirit of the original trust, and the last trustees hope the people of Chislehurst will enjoy these facilities for many years to come. As Rec users we are truly indebted to the founders for their foresight and to the trustees who followed them, keeping their vision alive. 

Barbara Arora

Chair FOCRG 

(Former Chair of Trustees CPFA)

Why are there posts in the ground in Walden Rec?

Part of Walden Rec is now a bee corridor which means it won’t be mowed as often as the rest of the rec. 

We won’t plant any wild flowers for the time being but will wait and see what what naturally grows in the area.

The flowers will not only benefit bees but can also support other insects as well as species such as butterflies, dragonflies and moths.

We have also asked Idverde not to mow some of the grass along the side of the path towards Whytes woods and will plant indigenous flowers shortly to encourage more insects to inhabit the area.

Did you know that the honey bee population in the UK has halved in the last 25 years? Exact reasons for this decline aren’t known but include:

• shrinking habitats

• pests and diseases

• pollution

• the use of pesticides and fertilisers on crops

• recent poor summers

And we’re not just losing bees. Three-quarters of butterfly species and two-thirds of moths have seen their populations go down since the 1970s.

If pollinating insects can’t move around, they go hungry, their breeding pools become smaller and the species become less resistant to pests and diseases. That’s why these corridors are important, enabling the pollinators to move from one area to the next.Hopefully we will see lots of bees, butterflies, moths and other insects in Walden rec. in the future now our bee corridor is open for business  🦋  

On Tuesday 10th March we celebrated our 10th Birthday! We invited everyone to come and join us for a celebration at 2pm on in the Roost.

30 Jan 2020: Here is our third “Learn to Go Green” newsletter. Letter C driving us forward. What begins with C, that has a surprisingly significant impact on our environment? Not sure? Well, read on - you may be surprised!

19 Jan 2020: Here is our second “Learn to Go Green” newsletter, brought to you by the letter B. Now, what beings with B and has been driving environmentalists crazy for a long time now? You’ve guessed it. Read the newsletter to find out how you can do your part.

9 Jan 2020: Here is our inaugural “Learn to Go Green” newsletter. We are working our way through the alphabet, this first edition is all about a troublesome metal beginning with A. See the image to find out what it is!

Awards for our park

We have retained our Green Flag Award for another year! This is an annual accreditation scheme, independently judged, given to parks and green places that have been assessed as “expertly managed”. We are proud to carry the Green Flag banner for Chislehurst.

In addition, we have been rated as Outstanding by the London in Bloom people. Our thanks to all our wonderful volunteers who have made these achievements possible.

GARDENING CLUB

Would you like to join our weekly Gardening Club? See the Gardening Club page for more details.