Wormwood Scrubs Park is the largest public open space in the L.B. Hammersmith and Fulham and its management is subject to the terms of the 1879 Wormwood Scrubs Act.  This requires that where and when the site is not being used by the military, "..it shall be maintained for the perpetual use..by the inhabitants of the metropolis for exercise and recreation in perpetuity."  Day to day management is overseen by the Borough's Direct Services Department and the LNR is managed by the Naure Conservation Officer (see Site Guardian).

The land now occupied by Wormwood Scrubs Park was originally part of the Great Middlesex Forest, and known as Wormholt Wood.  Much of the woodland had disappeared by the mid 18th century, when the area became known as Wormers Scrubs.  By the beginning of the 19th century, Milne's Map shows the site as arable or pasture, although already there was a tradition of both recreational and military use.

In the mid 1980's the GLC, which managed the site at the time, planted up a number of areas, mainly around the periphery with native whips.  These have now grown up into scrub and immature woodland, adding considerable interest to the landscape, whilst also providing cover for a variety of birds.

Until 1990, a broad swathe of roughland lay to the north of the park, alongside the Great West Railway, which became know as 'Scrubs Wood'.  The habitat had grown up on a former railway siding and allotments and proved to be extremely rich in wildlife, supporting amongst other things a substantial population of common lizard as well as small numbers of slow-worm.  Unfortunately, the area succumbed to the development of Channel Tunnel train maintenance sheds, despite a vigorous campaign by local people, led by a local schoolboy, Lester Holloway.  However, some of the turf from the railside land, containing meadow ant hills, was translocated into a fenced off enclosure at the northern end of the park.  Several hundred lizards were rescued from the railside land and cared for in a herpetological enclosure away from London whilst other were translocated to a number of other local sites where the habitat was considered suitable.  Approximately 200 individuals were later returned to the park.  As part of the mitigation for the visual intrusion of the new rail sheds, a long bank was created along much of the north-eastern boundary of the site. 

A Century of Public Exercise and Recreation  by the Greater London Council Staff Sports Club, 1979.

A revealing article with extracts from local clergy, explantations of some of the political chicanery that moulded the Scrubs into its present shape.