Woodberry Wetlands is eleven hectares of reed-fringed water in Hackney, free to walk into, nine minutes from Manor House station. It was a closed Victorian reservoir until 2016, when Sir David Attenborough opened it to the public, and the café sits in a building called the Coal House at the Lordship Road gate.
The water is Stoke Newington East Reservoir, built in 1833 and still owned by Thames Water. London Wildlife Trust manages the site as a nature reserve, and the New River — the 1613 aqueduct that filled the reservoir in the first place — runs right past the entrance. The main gate is literally on the New River Path.
Two things make it unusual among London reserves: it is inside the city rather than at the edge of it, and it has a proper café, toilets and a shop, which most reserves this size do not. Our guide to the New River Path covers the channel itself and the 28-mile walk beside it.
Woodberry Wetlands at a glance
- Entry
- Free
- Size
- 11 hectares of reed-fringed ponds and dykes
- Open
- October to March, 9.30am to 4pm (last entry through the East gate 3.30pm). April to September, 9.30am to 5pm (last entry 4.30pm)
- Main entrance
- Via the New River Path, Lordship Road, London N16 5HQ
- Nearest station
- Manor House (Piccadilly line), about 9 minutes on foot
- Opened
- 2016, by Sir David Attenborough
- Owner and manager
- Owned by Thames Water, managed by London Wildlife Trust
- Designation
- Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation
- Dogs
- Guide dogs and assistance dogs only
- Facilities
- Café, toilets including an accessible toilet, baby changing, shop, picnic area
Two sets of opening hours, and the gate that closes first
The reserve runs two seasons and it is worth getting the right one. From October to March it opens at 9.30am and closes at 4pm; from April to September it closes at 5pm. Either way it opens at 9.30am, which is earlier than most London attractions and makes it a genuinely good first stop of the day.
The trap is the East gate. Last entry through it is half an hour before closing — 3.30pm in winter, 4.30pm in summer — so arriving from the Woodberry Down side late in the day means a walk round to Lordship Road. If you are cutting it fine, use the main entrance.
The Trust names March to November as the best time to visit, which is unusually honest for a nature reserve: December, January and February are quiet, cold and short of daylight here, and the reed beds are cut back.
Getting there from central London
Manor House, on the Piccadilly line, is the station. Oxford Circus to Manor House takes 13 minutes and costs £3.10 off-peak on contactless, changing at Finsbury Park onto the Piccadilly; our guide to the Piccadilly line explains its branches. From the station it is a nine-minute walk to the Lordship Road entrance, measured by Transport for London's planner.
The route Transport for London gives is short and has three moves in it: about 260 metres from the station, then a right turn onto Woodberry Grove and Lordship Road for 376 metres, then a left turn for the last 40 metres. The gate sits on the New River Path rather than on the street, so look for the Coal House building rather than for a sign.
Two more approach routes are worth knowing. From Stoke Newington it is a fifteen-minute walk north up Lordship Road, which lets you combine the reserve with Church Street. And the New River Path itself runs in from Finsbury Park on one side and Wood Green on the other, so the reserve can be a stop on a longer walk rather than a destination.
Disabled parking bays sit outside each entrance. The Trust provides them at both gates, and the path from the main entrance to the Coal House and on to the New River Studio is level, with no steep gradients and seating at intervals. This is one of the more genuinely wheelchair-usable reserves in London.
The new path, and the trail that is shut
The circuit round the water has been rebuilt. The Trust has widened the footpath and raised it onto higher ground, which gives an uninterrupted view across the lake instead of a view of reeds, and put in six new public benches with back support. The surface has been finished to a standard the Trust describes as making the route more enjoyable for wheelchair users.
The woodland trail, however, is currently closed. The Trust says the underground installations need to settle before it can reopen and that it hopes this will only be a matter of months. There is no date. It does not stop you walking the main circuit, which is the better half anyway, but it shortens the visit.
Budget 45 minutes to an hour for the full loop at a walking pace, or two hours if you are stopping to look at birds and having something at the café. It is not a half-day site.
What lives here, and when
The species list is long for eleven hectares, and the Trust publishes it. The birds are the draw: gadwall, shoveler, shelduck, tufted duck and great crested grebe on the water; water rail and bittern skulking in the reeds in winter; reed warbler and Cetti's warbler singing from them in spring; kingfisher along the dykes and the New River.
Cetti's warbler is the one to listen for rather than look at. It is a small brown bird that almost never shows itself and then shouts, suddenly and very loudly, from a foot inside a reed bed. Once you know the sound you hear it everywhere here.
Beyond birds: smooth newt, common frog and common toad in the shallows; red-eyed damselfly over the water in summer; holly blue butterflies along the hedges; three bat species — Daubenton's, noctule and common pipistrelle — at dusk; and foxes, which are as unbothered here as everywhere else in London.
| Month | What the reserve is doing | Worth coming for |
|---|---|---|
| March to May | Reed beds greening, warblers arriving | Cetti's and reed warbler song, frogs and newts spawning |
| June to August | Meadow and dyke insects at their peak | Damselflies, holly blue, bats at dusk |
| September to November | Wildfowl building up on the open water | Gadwall, shoveler, shelduck; the best light of the year |
| December to February | Quiet, short days, reeds cut | Bittern and water rail, if you are patient and lucky |
The Coal House, and what the reservoir used to be
The café is in the Coal House at the Lordship Road entrance. The Food Standards Agency register gives The Coal House Café, 226 Lordship Road N16 5HQ, a hygiene rating of 5, inspected on 17 January 2025. There is a shop, toilets including an accessible toilet, baby changing facilities and a picnic area.
The building's name points at what this place was. The two Stoke Newington reservoirs, East and West, were dug in 1833 by the New River Company to supply what were then the separate suburban towns of Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill, and a working water site needed coal.
The century that followed is the more interesting story. Between 1850 and 1920 big Victorian and Edwardian villas went up with their gardens backing onto the New River, and Woodberry Down became an early stockbroker belt. The wars broke that; the Greater London Council compulsorily purchased the land, and the Woodberry Down estate went up along the northern bank of the reservoirs to rehouse families from Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and the docks.
Then, from the mid-1950s to about 1980, the reservoirs and the New River were treated with chlorine and sodium phosphate gas to keep the water clean, and the Trust's own account of it is blunt: the reservoir was devoid of any wildlife. Everything you can see here now has arrived since that stopped.
This reserve exists because local residents stopped it being built over. In 1992 the newly privatised Thames Water put both Stoke Newington reservoirs up for sale, with the intention that they be filled in and developed. A long residents' campaign saved them, the chemical dosing ended, and wildlife moved in. The 2016 opening was the end of that story, not the start of it.
Swimming, and what happens next door
You cannot swim at Woodberry Wetlands. The West Reservoir, on the other side of Green Lanes, is a different site run as a water sports centre, where supervised open-water swimming, sailing and kayaking do happen, with a compulsory induction for first-time swimmers. Our guide to swimming ponds and lidos in London has the rules and the prices for it.
The two sites are five minutes apart and confusing each other is the commonest mistake here. East Reservoir is the nature reserve with the reeds and the café. West Reservoir is the one with the wetsuits.
Is it worth the journey?
Yes, and it is one of the easier recommendations in this guide, because the cost is a Zone 2 fare and an hour. You get open water, reed beds, a rebuilt level path, a rating-5 café and a genuinely good bird list, inside a London postcode, for nothing.
Two qualifications. It is small, so do not travel across London for it alone — build it into a north-east London morning. And the woodland trail is shut, which removes perhaps a quarter of the walking.
The natural pairings are all within twenty minutes. Abney Park Cemetery is the overgrown Victorian contrast, fifteen minutes south. Walthamstow Wetlands, four miles east, is the same idea at ten times the scale and takes a whole day. Camley Street Natural Park at King's Cross is the smaller, more central version. And if you want a reserve that charges admission and fills a day properly, the WWT London Wetland Centre in Barnes is the one.
For a family, this works from about four upwards: a level loop, water on both sides, a café at the start and end, and no admission price to regret if it rains; see our guide to London with kids. Wheelchair users should read accessible London alongside the notes above. In late October the reed beds and the willows here are among the better places in inner London for autumn colour, and because it costs nothing it belongs on our list of free things to do in London.
Frequently asked questions
Is Woodberry Wetlands free?
Yes. There is no admission charge to the reserve, which London Wildlife Trust describes as free and accessible to everyone. You pay only at the Coal House café and shop. Disabled parking bays outside each entrance are also free to use.
What time does Woodberry Wetlands close?
At 4pm from October to March and 5pm from April to September, opening at 9.30am all year. Last entry through the East gate is half an hour before closing, so 3.30pm in winter and 4.30pm in summer.
Which station is nearest to Woodberry Wetlands?
Manor House, on the Piccadilly line, about nine minutes on foot from the Lordship Road entrance. Oxford Circus to Manor House takes 13 minutes and costs £3.10 off-peak. Stoke Newington station is about fifteen minutes' walk from the other side.
Can you swim at Woodberry Wetlands?
No. Swimming takes place at the West Reservoir Centre, a separate site across Green Lanes, where sessions are supervised and first-time swimmers do a short induction. The wetlands themselves are a nature reserve, and the water is not open to swimmers.
How long do you need there?
About 45 minutes to an hour to walk the circuit, or two hours with a stop at the café and some time watching from the benches. It is a morning's half, not a day out, and the woodland trail is currently closed while ground settles.
Sources
- London Wildlife Trust - Woodberry Wetlands: opening times, access, facilities and species (checked September 2026)
- London Wildlife Trust - history of Woodberry Wetlands (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - hygiene rating for The Coal House Cafe, 226 Lordship Road N16 5HQ (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Tube and rail fares (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Journey Planner, walking time from Manor House (checked September 2026)