Gunnersbury Triangle
| Gunnersbury Triangle | |
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IUCN category Ia (strict nature reserve)
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| Location | Hounslow/Ealing |
| Nearest city | London, England |
| Coordinates | 51°29′39.08″N -0°16′5.8″W / 51.4941889°N 0.268278°WCoordinates: 51°29′39.08″N -0°16′5.8″W / 51.4941889°N 0.268278°W |
| Governing body | London Wildlife Trust |
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Gunnersbury Triangle is a 2.57-hectare (6.4-acre) Local nature reserve in the London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow, immediately to the east of Gunnersbury. It was saved when, for the first time in Britain, a public inquiry in 1983 ruled that a planned development of the land could not go ahead because of its value for nature. It opened as a nature reserve in 1985.
The area consists mainly of secondary birch woodland, with some locally uncommon willow carr or wet woodland and a small area of acid grassland along the track of the former Acton curve railway. The reserve supports a varied population of plants, birds, amphibians, insects and other wildlife. It is managed by the London Wildlife Trust.
The reserve has free admission. It is maintained by London Wildlife Trust staff with the help of volunteers. There is a varied programme of activities including wildlife walks, fungus forays, open days and talks. The reserve is used regularly by school and community groups, and for team-building work days by corporate groups. Its entrance, with a wooden five-bar gate flanked by hedges, is on the south of Bollo Lane, a few yards from Chiswick Park tube station.
The area is shown on 19th-century maps as orchards and gravel quarries. The triangular area now occupied by the reserve was delineated by three railway lines, two belonging to the District Line (now part of London Underground's sub-surface lines), and the now defunct London and South Western Railway (LSWR). There was once a bridge into the triangle from the west, and in the 1940s it was used as railway allotments (vegetable gardens), but when London Transport's Acton Works was built, the bridge was abandoned. The area, thus disused, was colonised naturally by grasses and trees in a "secondary succession".
In 1981, the site was proposed for commercial development, provoking an energetic campaign by the Chiswick Wildlife Group, formed in March 1982, which became the local branch of the London Wildlife Trust. The threat to the site was one of the first to be highlighted by the London Wildlife Trust on its formation in October 1981. The campaign led to a Public Inquiry in July 1983, which determined that the site should be devoted to nature conservation. This was the first time anywhere in the United Kingdom that a Public Inquiry had ruled in favour of nature in a city, and the Gunnersbury Triangle example became a test case.
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