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The writer, journalist and historian C. J. Schüler discusses his latest book The Wood That Built London, with an illustrated talk chaired by literary journalist Suzy Feay.

Standing in the busy streets of South London today, it is hard to imagine that much of this suburban townscape was once a vast wood, stretching unbroken for almost seven miles from Croydon to the Thames at Deptford.

Drawing on historic documents, maps and environmental evidence, this compelling narrative charts the fortunes of the Great North Wood that once covered much of what is now South London: its ecology, ownership and management, the gradual encroachment of the metropolis, and the battles fought by locals and the London Wildlife Trust to save what remained.