The struggle to keep London's city farms afloat
Behind the MI6 building in Vauxhall, West London, alpacas graze.
Under the inner-city skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, sheep munch.
Just off Brick Lane in the East End, donkeys sneeze.
At the Kentish Town rail switch to the north, pigs wallow in mud.
London's city farms offer locals a chance to escape into somewhere both magical and ordinary - ramshackle places with run-of-the mill farm animals, made charming by their unexpected settings.
Some of them are now struggling to survive.
While chicken and geese endure their own lockdown as avian flu spreads, housing developers wonder why swathes of the city are given over to farmland.
After all, some city farms are startlingly large.
A few stops on the southbound DLR from Canary Wharf, Mudchute Farm (Pier St, E14 3HP) sprawls across 32 acres of pasture.
Vauxhall City Farm
Vauxhall City Farm
Mudchute City Farm
Mudchute City Farm
Spitalfields City Farm
Spitalfields City Farm
Kentish Town City Farm
Kentish Town City Farm
Here are some of the animals
you'll meet at Mudchute Farm
Middle White piglets greet passers-by with friendly screams
Llamas bray and run after a visitor recoils from a curious squirrel
A golden Tamworth sow nibbles on her lunch, apparently unbothered by the racket
Aylesbury ducks, confined to a roomy pen by avian flu, lick their feathers behind a sign recounting their history.
In the eighteenth century, these ducks were led through sticky tar and sawdust to protect their feet before they were marched 40 miles from Aylesbury to London.
At the back of the farm, Oxford Down sheep climb towards the crest of a grassy knoll.
It could be a scene from the Cotswolds or the Yorkshire Dales, if not for the Canary Wharf towers rising above them.
Mudchute is in Tower Hamlets, one of the most deprived places in London.
In its vicinity, there is both a desperate shortage of affordable housing and an appetite among developers for new land on which to erect office blocks.
Mudchute was founded in 1972, when Greater London Council announced plans for council housing for working-class locals on dredged land around the rusting Millwall Docks.
The land had been used as an RAF ack-ack emplacement during the Blitz, when Luftwaffe raids killed 430 Isle of Dogs residents and left thousands of others in need of new housing.
One of the anti-aircraft guns is still in place at the site, which was turned into farmland after “NIMBY” opposition to housing development from some locals.
The Mudchute Association, a charitable trust which runs the farm, could come away with an eight-figure sum if it sold the land and moved its 200 animals to a more conventionally rural setting in the Home Counties.
In the 2020-2021 financial year, free-to-visit Mudchute earned £1.472m.
Much of its income came from on-site activities and investments, but over a third derived from government grants.
The farm was refurbished during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it used the government’s Job Retention Scheme to put its 50 employees on furlough.
Although the farm’s stables had to close, it profited from a surge in visitor numbers as locked-down locals sought to kill time outdoors.
On the other side of Tower Hamlets, in the heart of the historic East End, Spitalfields City Farm (Buxton St, E1 5AR) welcomes 18,000 visitors a year with signs in both English and Bengali.
Emerging from a East End tradition of working-class backyard farming, the farm was built on 1.3 acres of wasteland near Brick Lane after local allotments were swallowed up by development.
It nearly went bust in 1987, and even today only earns £267k per annum, with far less government support than is given to Mudchute.
A railway goods depot once stood on the site of the farm, and the 1.3 acres it occupies are still owned by Tower Hamlets Council and Railtrack.
As the historically Bengali neighbourhood around it succumbs to gentrification, the farm says that it is now “under regular threat from developers”.
Visitors to Spitalfields will meet such delightful characters as Holmes the introverted pig, June the black mouser and Gilbert and Sullivan the donkeys.
The farm also adopts rescued chickens and rabbits from around East London.
A Bangladeshi gardener known as Lutfun grows coriander and other herbs on-site, alongside ponds containing great crested newts, a protected species.
To raise money, the farm runs animal visits to local primary schools, churches and synagogues. It also hosts goat races and wildlife drawing classes.
Fundraising has been an especially urgent task since the farm van broke down irreparably in 2021.
In a city where demand for housing vastly outstrips supply, it may no longer be possible for new urban farms - however small - to grow roots in a neighbourhood.
Oasis Farm Waterloo (18 Carlisle Ln, SE1 7LG) consists of three polytunnels, a set of raised planter beds, an aquaponics system and composting toilets, all contained within half an acre loaned by Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals in 2015.
Michelle Zahner, a worker at the farm, said: “The lease was only ever temporary, lasting five years.
“We built the farm in full knowledge that it would eventually be displaced by redevelopment.
“The hospitals have always been really supportive, and they’ve allowed us to operate until the end of next year while we find a spare half-acre somewhere in South London."
She added: “Everything at the farm can be dismantled, it’s all nuts and bolts.
“It’s pretty much IKEA flat-pack architecture, though our architects may not be thrilled to hear it described like that."
The farm hosts animals from Jamie Fielden’s educational farm in Bath on a rotation.
It was designed and built by Jamie’s brother Fergus, whose architectural practice Fielden Fowles has an office at the back of the farm.
Visitors to one of the farm’s seasonal fairs will likely encounter a sow, a ewe and their respective litters, alongside rescued battery hens.
Animals will typically spend 4-6 months in Waterloo before returning to Bath.
Oasis Farm recently welcomed some teenage pigs and said goodbye to some pubescent orphaned sheep.
Human visitors tend mainly to be locals, though things-to-do listicles in publications like Time Out have brought people from further afield.
As well as hosting corporate volunteers, the farm aims to give local children a chance to decompress in a quasi-rural setting.
Ms Zahner said: “Many kids who are struggling at school spend one morning or afternoon here every week to be in a space where the rules which confine them normally don’t exist.
“It’s a chance for them to escape behaviours which aren’t serving them well.”
The farm also sells vegetables and eggs to local schools, with Ms Zahner describing the system of “instant farming” where eggs are harvested as soon as they are laid.
She said: “This being central London, our hens have had a few altercations with local foxes - such being the traditional relationship between foxes and hens.
“Recently, avian flu means we have to keep them in a covered pen with open sides.
“The poor chickens can’t roam so it’s a bit rough on them, but it’s better than locking them up in a coop.”
Although it was only ever intended to be a temporary presence in Lambeth, the farm’s impending departure has been decried by some locals.
A campaign group, Save Waterloo Paradise, is calling on Lambeth Council to stop the farm being built over by a corporate blueprint for office blocks and high-rise flats.
Founded in 1972 by squatters in a disused timber yard, Kentish Town City Farm (1 Cressfield Cl, NW5 1BN) is London’s oldest.
The farm soon took over some derelict stables and workshops which the squatters found behind the yard in Gospel Oak.
Then as now, Gospel Oak was one of the most deprived areas of London.
Today the farm has 200 volunteers and an income of £360k.
It benefits from a professional fundraiser and £115k in government grants.
Kentish Town’s Young Farmers club introduces children between 8 and 16 to the practicalities of raising livestock.
The farm’s founders set up the Social Farms and Gardens network, which connects 2000 urban farms and gardens across Britain.
In recent years, the farm’s future has been put in doubt by internal disputes and financial shortfalls.
Mass resignations by senior staff and trustees culminated in the 2019 Hands Off Our Farm campaign, when volunteers protested cost-saving plans to move animals away from the farm.
The campaign was backed by local MP Keir Starmer, now Labour leader.
A new board and director were installed after the protests, and £50k was raised in a lockdown fundraiser.
The farm has long been supported by the City of London and Camden Council, which waived its rent payments during the pandemic.
Kentish Town City Farm's horses have been moved out of their paddock, which sits above a Network Rail tunnel.
Their cantering had loosened the earth, risking a landslide onto the tracks.
Here are some of the animals you'll meet at
Kentish Town City Farm
Sheep test the patience of Shirley, the farm’s black cow
Pig sisters Wilma and Betty sink their snouts into the abundant North London mud
Darth Vader the cockerel crows as passing Overground trains rattle his pen and the farm’s Wishing Tree
Under the shadow of MI6, Vauxhall City Farm (165 Tyers St, SE11 5HS) keeps 111 animals including turkeys, ponies and goats.
Its alpacas, which have appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, graze in Camberwell Pleasure Gardens, next to historic gay pub The Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
Like its counterpart in Kentish Town, the farm, which is visited by 50,000 people a year, was founded by local squatters in the 1970s across two-thirds of an acre.
Visitors who make a donation on entry are given bags of grassnuts to feed the farm’s goats, who on one rainy day could be found huddling beneath the window-sill of the site office.
Rhiannon Carr, one of 22 workers at the farm said: “It’s first and foremost an educational charity exposing children from five inner-city boroughs to farm animals.
“We also host corporate volunteers and teenagers doing their Duke of Edinburgh."
The farm also has a fully-licensed cafe and has opened an events-only bar.
Ms Carr said: “We breed our own animals and send some of our female sheep and goats to Mudchute to hang out with boys for six weeks.
“We’re not an animal sanctuary and numbers don’t really fluctuate.”
Although it survived the pandemic, the cost of living crisis has placed acute pressure on the farm.
Its £670k income derives largely from individual donations and legacies, which are now drying up.
Ms Carr said: “We’re a small independent charity with no independent funding.
“Without visitors we don’t get donations, so the pandemic hit us hard.
“Now we have this cost of living situation, people can’t give any more.
“Meanwhile the costs of feeding our animals and keeping them healthy is rising every month.”
In past years the farm has rented its animals out to studios for use in productions like Star Wars and The Apprentice, but business from the entertainment industry has also largely disappeared.
She added: “This winter could be devastating for us.
“As it gets colder, outdoor attractions like city farms see a fall in visitors and donations.”
Avian flu has also challenged the farm, which has moved its ducks and geese from their farm to a netted enclosure.
Ms Carr is stoical about the problems facing city farms like Vauxhall.
“We’ve been around since the 1970s and have endured rocky times before.
“I’m hopeful that we will survive now.”
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