Ruislip Lido and Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve

The reservoir was opened on 5 December 1811 by the engineer John Rennie with the constructor Hugh Mackintosh, as a feeder for the Grand Junction Canal: land at the hamlet of Park Hearne was bought and the valley dammed and flooded. It reopened as a lido in 1933 with an Art Deco building by George W. Smith and was formally opened by Earl Howe in 1936; the canal company built the artificial sand beach on the south-east shore as part of the same scheme. Ruislip Woods was declared a National Nature Reserve on 21 May 1997, covering 294 hectares, with an SSSI over it of 305.4 hectares. The reserve is four woods — Park Wood, Mad Bess Wood and Copse Wood at Ruislip, and Bayhurst Wood at Harefield — all managed by the London Borough of Hillingdon. The railway was first built in 1945 and has been run since 1979 by the volunteer Ruislip Lido Railway Society, with stations at Woody Bay, Willow Lawn, Haste Hill and Eleanor's Junction. Northwood Hills Underground station, on the Metropolitan line, is 1,503 m away, and route H13 stops 632 m from the lido.