IN FOCUS! Site Works - Greenhouses, Stables, The Nest & The Lodge - plus projects in the pipeline

WINTER 2025 Edition - written by Sam Dodd in conversation with steven

For our Winter In-Focus piece, our Editor Sam interviewed Site Manager Steven, for updates on all the varied and exciting site works happening here at the Farm over the last year or so.

These works would not be possible without some generous donors. We are grateful to Tower Hill Trust (a long term supporter of the Farm), City University, The Greater London Authority (GLA), Tower Hamlets Council, and two of our corporate partners, Nuveen and SEI. Many thanks for their generous support.

Greenhouse Project

Our new greenhouses

We have brand new greenhouses for use by our Community Grower Lutfun, our volunteers, and the rest of the team - this has been a long project in the making and we are thrilled that they’re up and running. They include one bed which is heated from the inside - to do this we buried heated wires in the bed itself inside a sand layer, which is a perfect environment for chili plants particularly. In March, when the summer is approaching, we will remove the heated wires and use it like the other three normal beds in there.

These structures are not open to the public as the heat environment has to be very carefully maintained at a regular temperature - however, the outside of the glass has diagrams and text for information on what is growing where, for the public to read and learn more about what we grow. These structures are immediately next to the train line, so once we had cleared the base level ourselves as a team, we had to contract an external company to level the ground precisely, and another one to build them.

Steven and a volunteer built the raised beds, once the external structures were finished. We used leftover railway sleepers for this part of the project from our raised bed build, in our usual tradition of using as much existing on-site material as possible.

Soon, we will be adding storage shelves for tools - and we have just added a rainwater butt to one end for watering our crops with clean rainwater instead of chemical-ridden tap-water.

Stable Block

Our new stable block

We are so thrilled that our new stable block is up and running, and safely housing our donkeys and goats. The previous structure had been built in the eighties, and not updated since, and we are constantly amazed that they stayed standing for that long!

They are much more functional now, incorporating internal gates that can extend or shrink the enclosures within for if we need to split off animals (for behavioural or health reasons) or make their space bigger and socialise the animals together more. There is also much more storage space for tools, hay and straw, and the roof has been reinforced.

The Nest

The Nest

The Nest has now been rebuilt, into a dry, clean space for handling small animals, arts and craft activities, storage for all our education materials, and pending a room-scale nature table type of space that holds natural artefacts which kids can look at – stones, skulls, shells, and similar.

There’s a new extendable ramp, a bigger and wider door for better accessibility, and it has been redesigned on the outside to look like a nest. Our Education team are hoping to run after school clubs in there during term-time, and we’d like to hook up an iPad to run educational farm films on a loop.

The Lodge

The Lodge

Formerly known as the ‘beautiful shed project’ and initiated by our much-loved colleague Emily Hegarty, we have now finally finished this long term build, and are extremely proud of the space. Emily began this project before she passed away in 2020. She used traditional timber and wood processing techniques, hand-laying shingles herself with a large volunteer team after taking courses in and heavily researching all these methods.

Emily is greatly missed, having dedicated 10 years to the community of Spitalfields City Farm. Starting as an enthusiastic volunteer, then soon becoming a staff asset as a keen gardener and sharing her passion for community farming to others, through team challenge days and health food workshops.

Christmas brought Emily the most joy, and her upbeat attitude for dressing up and decorating the farm brought laughter to the whole team.

In 2024, we honoured Emily’s memory by finishing the job she started. We got builders in, added storage, finished the walls, insulated it, and laid the electrics. We now use it as a Multi-Faith Space to reflect and welcome our diverse community, as a meeting room, and soon we will be running a clothes sale shop inside it too.

Thank you for your vision, Emily. We promise to finish the missing shingles soon!

In memory of Emily Hegarty, 1978-2020

Other New Structures & Upcoming Projects!

We also have a brand new tool shed now which Steven and Kerim (our new Maintenance Volunteer) have been building, organising, and labelling. This will make things much easier for our staff and volunteer teams, with very well organised tools securely stored and labelled, and also be more accessible to those with limited mobility than our tool sheds have been in the past.

Because this shed is smaller than the one that stood there before, we have more space to grow vegetables outside of it. We have revamped the rainwater collection area on this part of the site now too, and will be growing climbers up the side of the new shed - we need to prettify it a bit!

There is a brand new rabbit hut at the far end of the farmyard, which our six rabbits are cosied up in: Orange and Tempo plus the four seasons; Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. It even has a patio! Go and have a look next time you visit.

We are also working on a large toilet and kitchen renovation project, to make the farm much more accessible. This is part-funded by Tower Hamlets Council, and part-funded by Veolia Environmental Trust. We are incredibly grateful for this money. This will be three separate toilet cubicles, a large accessible toilet with a wet-room shower, more storage, and a new staff and volunteer kitchen with a dishwasher, much more storage, lower and more accessible counters, renovation of the lighting and tiling, and a brand new boiler - our current one is very old! Finally, we are also renovating the public handwashing station that is currently outside next to the tea-hut.

Lastly! First, in March we have a brand new small animal enclosure being built - watch this space for new developments and announcements of which rescue and rare breed animals we will be adopting and homing in this space. Second, by the summer we hope to have installed a boarding house, so we can provide the pets of local schools a home over the summer holidays (chickens, guinea pigs, etc). And third! We are going to be re-fencing the farmyard paddocks and grassed areas, and rebuilding the duck pond to give our beautiful birds a new lease of life too.

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