Winter Fayre! Saturday 13th December

We are having a Winter Fayre! Expect live music, kids activities, a tea tasting session, a 'personalise your own planter' session, a choir, a brass band, a spinning stall, a lace-making stall, and lots of market stalls with warm food and drinks. There will also be a camp fire to sit around.

Reserve your free ticket by clicking on this link!

We have a new outdoor pizza/cob oven!

Throughout the October half-term, we were excited to welcome Matthew Lloyd from the Fabulous Cob Oven Company to lead family workshops on building with cob. Cob is an ancient eco-friendly building material made by combining sand, straw, clay and water which can then be formed into almost anything, a building, walls or in our case an outdoor oven. Over three days children (and adults) stomped, squished and splatted the mixture in the kitchen garden and we now have a beautiful oven to share with our groups, schools, volunteers and to hire. We held a pizza party for staff and volunteers to give the oven its trial run and hone our pizza making skills. Thanks so much to Matthew for sharing his knowledge, make sure to take a look at the finished oven in the kitchen garden when you next visit. It now also has a recycled corrugated iron roof so we can use it whatever the weather!

Pond Works with London Amphibian & Reptile Group

On Saturday 15th November we welcomed back London Amphibian and Reptile Group to help run our annual winter pond maintenance that we carry out to preserve and protect the habitats of the various amphibians we are lucky to have call home - including the rare Great Crested Newt, which is heavily protected under law. Hosted by our own Sam Dodd, and working under the expert direction of GCN licence holder John Salisbury (Chair of LARG), some wonderful freshwater volunteers from all over London and further afield joined in for our annual revival of these stunning freshwater habitats, and the event was filmed this time round by Ian Phillips of Re:Nature Ldn, who made the wonderful video you can see above. Enjoy!

Shop News - buy your Christmas presents here!

There is loads of exciting new stock in the shop! We love to promote independent artists and makers (including ourselves!) so if you're buying Christmas presents, please do consider us as a place to shop.

We have just introduced animal encounter gift cards; give your loved ones the gift of an animal experience: ferret walking, goat walking, donkey grooming, and more is available. And if you want more than what our little shed of a shop can offer, then make every effort to come down to the Winter Fayre, where there will plenty more market stalls to browse and support!

Also: a reminder to not let the cold stop you growing! This year we have potted up some of the lovely winter crops we grow for you to have a go with; we've got lettuce, chard, mustard greens and perennial herbs available.

And don't forget us in the New Year, we will be open as usual from 6th January (full closure period at the bottom of this newsletter) and its a really quiet and peaceful time to visit the farm.

Goodbye to our much-loved Tempo (2014-2025)

Tempo the rabbit arrived in summer of 2016, having been abandoned at the gates of Thomas Buxton primary school next door, and discovered by their caretaker. Our vets told us she'd have been perhaps 2 years old at that point. She initially lived with a group of rabbits that all had musical themed names; hence 'Tempo'. Over time, she bonded with Orange the rabbit, and got to enjoy the ultimate rabbit housing upgrade with the season rabbits in her retirement!

Our farmyard team sadly had to make the difficult decision to say goodbye this week, as a large tumor began to affect her quality of life. She will be remembered very fondly; she was an all-round fantastic rabbit, spending her years here educating volunteers and visitors about animal care and welfare.

VEG OF THE MONTH - Butternut Squash + Mooli

We recently had a fantastic butternut squash harvest here at the Farm (modelled here by our very own Sadie), and pulled up some gorgeous mooli too. Both of these crops went in part to St John Restaurant, one of our commercial partners, and also supplied a community sale at a local school, and our own Farm shop.

We have also recently begun supplying Dockley Road restaurant in Bermondsey too, who are buying herbs and spinach. Give both of these spectacular restaurants a visit!

Team Challenge Statistics - company volunteering in 2025

If you didn't already know, here at the Farm we run team challenge days for companies who want to do something fun with their Corporate Social Responsibility budgets, and give back to their community while strengthening their intra-team bonds. In 2025 we've been lucky enough to work with some fantastic teams.

Some statistics from 2025:

Number of teams hosted: 327
Number of volunteers across all those teams (on the day): 2,130
Number of hours contributed to Farm labour from those individuals: 8,036

This is an extraordinary amount of labour, and we're incredibly grateful - as we tell these teams in-person on the day, we could not maintain this site without Team Challenge volunteer time. It also helps us fund our education and mobile farm programmes, which help us keep growing, animal experiences, and our space in general available for free to the various under-served groups we work with.

If you work for a company with a CSR budget, please consider spending a day with us! Click this link for full information on costs, activities, what to expect, and how we look after you all on the day.

Hope to get your company booked in soon!

site improvement callout!

We need your skills! Do you have any experience or contacts in wood shingling? Our Lodge has a shingle roof in dire need of improvements. if you know anyone who knows anything, please share our site manager's email with them and ask them to get in touch. Your Farm needs you!

festive closure period

As always, we will be closed for several weeks over the festive / betwixtmas period. Our last day open is Friday 19th December, and our first day back is Tuesday 6th January. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year, and Merry Christmas if you celebrate.

LASTLY, CHRISTMAS DONATIONS CALLOUT!

If you're able this festive period, do consider making the Farm a donation to cover our running costs over the colder winter months. Your money could help pay for the heating that keeps our non-native guinea pigs warm; our animal feed; vets bills; and various other ever-increasing overheads. Any amount is gratefully received.

We wish you and your loved ones a very merry festive period, and a peaceful New Year.

That's it for this edition! Thank you for reading.

The Farm is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10.00am to 4.30pm.
We look forward to welcoming you soon.

Winter 2026 Newsletter