Coppett’s Wood was once part of a forest known as Finchley Wood. By the sixteenth century it had shrunk in size and became known as a common, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was used for pursuits such as bare-knuckle boxing, horse racing and pigeon shooting. It also had a reputation as a haunt of highwaymen.

The site belonged to the Bishop of London. It is thought that most of the common was used as wood pasture; a fairly open landscape of scattered wide-crowned trees, clumps of gorse and grassy meadow, where local people had limited stock-grazing rights. The origin of Coppett’s Wood as such is a little unclear; it first appears as woodland on Ordnance Survey maps from surveys of 1862-71, although individual features may date from an earlier time. It is thought to have been used for timber production and managed as coppice woodland; the old boundary ditches along the southern and western edges, which survive to this day, may once have served to deter the cattle from straying into the wood. An old woodland path, along the south-western boundary of the wood, can be traced to Rocque’s map of 1754.

Most of the common was ‘privatised’ by an enclosure Act in 1811; first for agricultural development, later to become housing estates or recreational land. In 1885 a typhoid epidemic lead to the recognition of the need for better sewage treatment for the newly developing suburbs.

In the nineteenth century a sewage works was built on the site. It was closed in 1963, but still has its legacy in the rich variety of plants in the Scrublands. In the Second World War it was used for military training, and several tank traps still remain.

The main trees are oak and hornbeam, and ground flora include bluebell and garlic mustard. Breeding birds include woodpeckers, tawny owls and sparrowhawks. A small pond has a clump of yellow iris, and common frogs and smooth newts. Scrublands has a variety of habitats and some rare plants such as imperforate St John’s-wort. There are several rare species of insects.

Access to the site is from Colney Hatch Lane and North Circular Road.