A capital harvest festival
PARTNERSHIP CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF STAGING EVENT
THE London Harvest Festival is 20 years old this autumn and promises to be better than ever.
London has an amazing outdoor heritage with 17 farms and more than 2,000 community gardens delivering services and community development to hundreds of thousands in the city and the surrounding areas.
The London Harvest Festival celebrates this work and honours the volunteers, including many children and young people, of London’s community gardens and city farms. The festival is organised by a long-standing partnership of London’s farms and community gardens, this year celebrating a 20-year milestone of voluntary effort and community engagement.
To mark the anniversary the festival is moving to the heart of historic London. Previously held on the grounds of Capel Manor College in Enfield, the London Harvest Festival will now rotate between London’s city farms, enabling an even wider audience to experience these valuable, beautiful, welcoming spaces, and the work that happens within them.
More than 30 city farms and community gardens will participate in the festival, which features everything from awards for best cow, horse, donkey, duck and small furry animals, to handforged medals for young volunteer farmers, prizes for Londongrown displays, delicious local food, and ‘have a go’ activities from pottery to apple-pressing and blacksmithing to flower jewellery.
So, whether you are interested in champion chutneys, fragrant flowers, beating the drum for traditional crafts, glamorous goats, rare breed beasts, clucking chickens, the herding of geese, or simply wish to enjoy tea and cake in this stunning 89-acre working city farm – London Harvest Festival has something for you.
London’s farms and community gardens are important for biodiversity and air quality; and make our city beautiful. They are also vital to volunteering and the well-being of Londoners, providing services from playcentres to training and apprenticeships, to the care and recovery provided by care farms, to cultural and arts events, alongside practical farming and gardening opportunities that open people’s horizons and bring communities together.
The harvest festival is organised by a long- standing partnership of city farms and community gardens including Hammersmith Community Garden Association, Hackney City Farm, Kentish Town City Farm in Camden, Spitalfields City Farm in Tower Hamlets and more.
This year’s event is sponsored by The Big Lottery’s Awards for All England Grant Programme, The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association and Social Farms & Gardens.
Charity director Chris Blythe said: “Social Farms & Gardens are pleased to continue our long-running support for the London Harvest Festival. The 20th Anniversary celebration and move to Greenwich will introduce even more Londoners to the life-enhancing activities delivered by London’s farms and community gardens.”
London Harvest Festival is on Saturday September 29, 10am to 5pm at Woodlands Farm, 331 Shooters Hill, Welling (near Greenwich) DA16 3RP. Entrance is free. Visit www. facebook.com/LondonHarvestFestival for information