The Ealing Beaver Project Tour: A Pioneering Urban Rewilding Story

(4 reviews)

London audio tour: The Ealing Beaver Project Tour: A Pioneering Urban Rewilding Story

This is a 0.5mi walking tour

It takes an average of 45 mins to complete.

London

The United Kingdom

$5.99

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About the Tour

London may be known for its concrete jungle, but a remarkable transformation is underway in Greenford. On this walking tour, you'll discover how Britain's only publicly accessible Beaver reintroduction project is revolutionising flood management, biodiversity, and community engagement.

You’ll stroll through Paradise Fields and hear its story as it evolved from an ecological dead zone into a thriving wetland ecosystem, and witness firsthand the extraordinary impact of bringing back a keystone species extinct in Britain for over 400 years.

The tour starts at Paradise Fields, a sunken basin that was once farmland, then a golf course, before being converted to wetland in 2000 to mitigate flood risk. You'll weave along the Capital Ring path, exploring beaver-engineered landscapes from viewing platforms and woodland workshops.

You'll learn how these industrious ecosystem engineers are tackling urban flooding while creating diverse habitats that have attracted rare butterflies, Water Rails, Cuckoos and more back to this once-degraded site.

The tour ends at the lagoon bank where five Eurasian Beavers were released in 2023, an area that has since become a community gathering spot where urban dwellers reconnect with nature on their doorstep.

On this 45-minute walking tour, you'll have a chance to:

Examine Beaver-built dams, canals, and lodges that help prevent urban flooding during heavy rains and mitigate drought in summer
Observe Beaver tooth marks on felled trees and learn how these natural coppicers create structural diversity within woodland
Explore the special relationship between Beavers and rare Brown Hairstreak butterflies, whose populations have skyrocketed since the Beavers' arrival
Learn how Beaver dams filter water and transform channelised streams into complex wetlands, creating vital habitat for amphibians, birds, bats and invertebrates
See impressive Beaver-felled trees and understand their strategic purpose – not destruction, but ecosystem regeneration
Discover how eight new bird species and two new bat species have been recorded in the two years since the Beavers' arrival

Come experience this remarkable urban conservation success story that demonstrates how nature-based solutions can transform our cities while creating deeper connections between communities and wildlife. You might arrive a curious visitor, but you'll leave a Beaver Believer.

Tour Producer

The Ealing Beaver Project

1 tour

The Ealing Beaver Project is the first of its kind in Britain, fully publicly accessible and in such an urban location where people can witness a Beaver wetland emerging over time. A collaborative project between Ealing Wildlife Group, Citizen Zoo, Friends of Horsenden and Ealing Council, supported by Beaver Trust and Mayor of London. It demonstrates how we can live alongside this keystone species again, harnessing their abilities to build climate resilience in the urban landscape, mitigating for flooding and drought, enhancing habitats and biodiversity and engaging diverse urban communities with the value and benefits of nature.

Join vet, conservationist and presenter Dr Sean McCormack, the project lead and license holder for the Ealing Beaver Project as he guides you around the site sharing insights and discoveries behind the scenes on this urban rewilding project.

Preview Location

Location 10

Beaver Crossing

You’re now approaching the Beaver crossing where the Costons Brook runs under the Capital Ring.

Come to a stop when you're closer.

This is the permanent water source that flows all year round through Paradise Fields. Before the Beavers arrived, it was about a metre wid... You’re now approaching the Beaver crossing where the Costons Brook runs under the Capital Ring.

Come to a stop when you're closer.

This is the permanent water source that flows all year round through Paradise Fields. Before the Beavers arrived, it was about a metre wide and a few inches deep during dry weather, and after heavy rainfall it flash flooded and scoured the banks bringing water through the site in a matter of minutes and out into urban Greenford underground as you saw previously at the outflow station.

On the bridge section of the Capital Ring look upstream to your left and downstream to your right and you’ll appreciate what colossal change the Beavers have brought here in terms of water storage, and slowing the flow of water by spreading it laterally across the land. They made their first dam just downstream here to create a deep water pool as a refuge before leaving the water and heading upstream by crossing the capital ring. This literally was a Beaver crossing and that’s why we erected the sign that you’ll see just beyond the bridge on the right. We jokingly referred to this pool as the beaver infinity pool, but it allowed them to check for danger using their scent and hearing to find out if the coast was clear to emerge from the water on to land where they feel vulnerable.

It raises the question why do Beavers dam? Beavers dam not to alleviate urban flooding and not to boost biodiversity but to feel safe in their environment. They’re highly adapted to an aquatic lifestyle and at the first sign of danger they disappear into their watery landscape just as quickly as they can appear silently and take you by surprise. All they need is about a meter and a half of depth of water to go about their business safely and avoid detection by people and predators.

We often get asked to do Beavers in Britain have any predators because just like we eradicated the Beaver we also eradicated Wolves, Bears and Lynx from Britain. However, beavers do have natural predators in the British ecosystem, young Beavers in particular will sometimes be predated by Foxes, Badgers, Otters and Eagles. But it’s not predators really that control Beaver numbers, it’s Beavers. Because they engineer their landscape so much they are very territorial and will not allow strange beavers to enter their territory. In fact, the greatest cause of mortality for Beavers in wild conditions is attacks by other Beavers during the dispersal period when youngsters strike out on their own from their parents territory in search of one of their own. If a river catchment has healthy stable population of Beavers that is what controls beaver populations because there will be no more new territories available until established Beavers die. In natural conditions youngsters would move away even further to try to find an unoccupied territory but in conditions where they are not available they often stick around with Mum and Dad helping out for many years. In this enclosure our youngsters don’t have that opportunity with the fence encircling Paradise Fields so we do some Beaver management annually by trapping and taking out the eldest youngsters to other projects nationwide. It’s our hope that youngsters born in this enclosure will eventually go back to a life in the wild in Britain rather than into more enclosures.

Anyway, back to the Brook. Before the Beavers came here the Zoological Society of London kindly offered to do some survey work for free for the project to establish the health of the aquatic ecosystem here. They described this section of the book which is heavily shaded and full of sediment as an ecological dead zone because it contained an extremely poor diversity and low abundance of aquatic invertebrates, the foundation of any aquatic ecosystem food web. Since the Beavers have come and started damming, dredging out silt, introducing more light and making this system more complex, the water quality has improved with significant reduction in nutrient levels. The clarity of the water has improved. The gravel bed of the brook has been exposed and oxygen levels have increased downstream of each dam, to the point freshwater shrimp turned up the following Spring after the Beavers go t to work. The dams act as a giant filtration system and the abundance and diversity of aquatic invertebrates has skyrocketed leading to significant changes higher up the food chain in terms of bird, bat and amphibian species to name just a few.

You may notice that the Beavers are felling large trees around the site which tends to happen more in winter time when the vegetation has died back and they become more reliant on bark as a source of food. We'll show you some of their handiwork at the next stop.

So, let's keep going, carry on past the Beaver crossing sign on your right.

Turn immediately right down the track and keep going until you hear from me again. Read More

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Major Landmarks

Paradise Fields, Horsenden Hill

Getting There

Route Overview

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Start location
A4127, Greenford UB6 0AA, UK
Total distance

736m
Final location
Perivale, Greenford UB6 0AD, UK
Distance back to start location

132.97m

Directions to Starting Point

The tour begins at the underpass entrance to Paradise Fields in Westway Cross Retail Park, just six minutes walk from Greenford Tube station on the Central Line, next to the McDonalds car park. Just Google The Ealing Beaver Project for the maps location, postcode UB6 0UW or on What.Three.Words we are at wacky.vibes.spider.

If driving, you can park in the retail park for free for 4 hours total, but the small car park immediately on your right next to McDonald's is free of charge all day.

In all but the driest summer months, we recommend comfortable, waterproof footwear; walking boots are usually fine, but in the winter, wellington boots can be handy as certain paths can be muddy after lots of rain. Unfortunately, due to the terrain, the entirety of this audio tour is not wheelchair accessible currently.

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

Toilets are located in various retail outlets in the retail park next door, McDonalds being closest.

Best time of day

From dawn to dusk is ideal. Early mornings are best for wildlife in general, but there is always plenty to see. Don't forget to remove your earphones on the walk back after the tour and dial in to the natural soundscape on site.

To see Beavers, we recommend either first light any time of year, or late summer evenings when it's still light after 8pm, usually late May to September for the best opportunities. We'd love you to book on to a guided Beaver safari tour where you stand the best chance as expert guides will show you the most likely places at that time where Beavers are known to be active, and these support the ongoing running costs of the project. You can follow our Eventbrite profile here for announcements of when new dates are listed for tours: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/73770039673

Precautions

When using headphones, take care of other site users like cyclists and other pedestrians using the Capital Ring footpath. .

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