Fernridge Nature Park, the old Horne Pit in Brookswood

Brookswood has a gravel pit that spent decades turning into a wetland on its own, and the Township is now planning a park around it. Council voted unanimously on Monday, May 25, 2026, to move ahead with cost estimates for the rest of what will become Fernridge Nature Park, according to the Langley Advance Times. That is the newest step we can find, and it is a planning step: nothing we have read says the park is open.

What it is

The Township has owned the site for a long time and dug gravel from it for road building and repair. When the digging stopped, groundwater filled the low spots and a wetland grew in. It sits near the headwaters of the Little Campbell River, which runs south through Brookswood and on into Campbell Valley Regional Park. The Township’s Fernridge Neighbourhood Plan (Bylaw 6009) calls it the Little Campbell River Wetlands Natural Park, “formerly known as Horne Pit”, and calls for a conservancy and management plan for it. The map above is the plan’s own parks and open space map; the large green block at the left edge, between 24 and 28 Avenue, appears to be the pit-and-wetland area, though the map does not label it.

What council has described for the next phase

A concept plan shown to council includes a hill with a view over the wetland, nature trails, washrooms and some parking, and a multi-sport court that could be used for basketball, ball hockey or soccer. Much of this is already budgeted; the court and parking are shared with the Brookswood fire hall project nearby. The Advance Times report notes that some trails, public washrooms and new planting still need full funding. The report places the next phase “later this year”, which is as precise as it gets. The Township’s 2024 initiatives list mentions the replacement fire hall in Brookswood-Fernridge.

Who has been watching it

Dr. Michael Davies of the Little Campbell River Watershed Society told council the society has been looking at the watershed for about 30 years and has run bird and animal surveys on the site: 40 birds in a single day this spring, and a bio-blitz last year that found 85 bird species, three kinds of bats, six of bees and six of butterflies. The Langley Field Naturalists wrote separately in July to thank the Township, citing a bioblitz last year that found 360 species including 84 birds. The two bird counts differ by one; both are quoted as each group reported them.

A reader photo in the Advance Times on November 1 showed two beaver dams under construction on the Little Campbell River in the new park, which suits a place that exists because water collected there.

Before you go looking

With no published entrance, we’d wait rather than go looking for a way in. Email the project team, or watch the Township’s Horne Pit page and its news releases for an opening notice. For a walk along the same river today, see Campbell Valley Regional Park, and for a pond closer to home, Brookswood Pond and Noel Booth Park.

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