A Beaver Haven in Urban London
Welcome to Paradise Fields, the home of London’s first urban beavers! This 10-hectare site occupies a low-lying basin in the southwestern corner of Horsenden Hill, the Borough’s largest conservation area, with 100 hectares of meadows, wetlands and woodland habitat. Paradise Fields is the UK’s only publicly-accessible urban beaver site. We invite you to spend time in this dynamic, well-loved and much-utilised space designed with wildlife and people at its heart.
In October 2023, a family of Eurasian beavers was introduced to the site by the Ealing Beaver Project. The project aims to restore nature, improve the area’s resilience by mitigating against flooding and drought, and capturing carbon in the face of climate change, and to engage urban communities with nature and Beaver ecology.
Aerial view of Paradise Fields
Site Guidelines
Keep dogs on leads at all times and under control. Clean up their poo and dispose of it in the bins provided.
Keep to designated pathways. Be mindful of falling trees and branches and stay away from the water’s edge.
Please respect the beavers. If you are lucky enough to spot them on site, please keep a safe distance and speak quietly so you don’t disturb them.
Leave no trace: don’t take plants, flowers and wildlife from the site and take your litter home with you or put it in the bin.
Beavers are wild animals, do not feed or approach them.
No fires or BBQs onsite: they cause wildfires and disturb wildlife.
Help with Biodiversity data collection
While on site, please record your observations on the iNaturalist app (Android, iOS). Simply set your location to “precise” when using the app and your observations will automatically be added to the iNaturalist “Ealing Beaver Project”. Your observations will help track biodiversity changes over the course of the project.
Community Survey
Learning to Live With BeaversScan this QR code or click on the button below
Help us understand how attitudes towards the Beaver reintroduction to urban London may change over time by participating in this survey.
Reintroduction is when a species is returned to an environment where it previously used to live. Beavers went extinct in Great Britain around 400 years ago due to habitat destruction, persecution, and hunting for their fur, meat, and glands. After public consultation and 2 years of planning, Natural England granted the Ealing Beaver Project a 5-year license to reintroduce beavers in an enclosure to Paradise Fields.
Through this survey, we aim to better understand:
- People’s knowledge about Beavers and Beaver ecology
- People’s attitudes towards Beaver reintroduction
- Perceived impacts of Beavers on people and the environment
- How people feel about Beaver management and welfare
- How people should be informed about the project
By taking part you will contribute towards a better understanding of how people perceive and react to Beaver reintroductions. This survey will inform project management decisions and help us to learn how to live alongside Beavers again.
Listen to the Sounds of Paradise Fields
Header image © Cathy Gilman