Our Sustainable Home

For many years, visitors to the reserve used our much loved “Hut” as a meeting place and storage area but, as our range of activities grew, it became clear that that it was just too small and increasingly in need of repair. We had a dream of building something that was true to our environmental principles and would be a fitting home for natural history education at Perivale Wood for many years to come.

In 2013, we decided it should be a self-build and began drawing up our plans; a further year of detailed design work and then two years of sterling effort from a build team, largely made up of dedicated volunteers, saw the new building take shape.

We worked with Straw Works, an architectural practice specialising in straw bale buildings, and the design incorporated many components that were donated, recycled or reused including the car tyres which form the foundations, the oak flooring, kitchen fittings, lights, wash hand basins and the leaded lights in the boot room.

The first straw bale was laid by our president, Lord Selborne, in April 2015 and the building, now titled the Bluebell Centre, was officially opened on 23rd April 2017 by entomologist and broadcaster Dr. George McGavin.