UK: Urban animals – the growth of city farms in 20th-century Britain

For 50 years, the city farm movement has been making green spaces – and the animals normally seen only in the countryside – accessible to communities in urban Britain.

By Mike Collins
History Extra
April 4, 2023

A handful of photographs from the 1970s, though slightly blurry and faded, paint a vivid picture of what appears to be a classic scene from the countryside. A boy in flares pushes a wheelbarrow laden with straw. Nearby, youngsters gingerly marshal a pair of goats, while a woman leads a horse around a muddy paddock. A hand-painted sign advertises a riding school and a chicken club.

On first glance, these images seem to depict a busy stable yard on a farm deep in the countryside. Look more carefully at the outer edges of the photos, though, and the perspective changes. Train carriages overlook the paddock, and Victorian terraced houses loom behind the stables. Look closer still and the straw-littered enclosure looks more like a builder’s yard.

If you’re exploring the family tree of the city farm movement, all the roots would lead back to where these images were taken. Fifty years ago, a derelict site, sandwiched in between two railway lines (barely 3 miles from London’s West End as the crow flies) would become Kentish Town City Farm. It began a quiet revolution that swept across the country, inspiring a new movement rooted in communities.

If you’re exploring the family tree of the city farm movement, all the roots would lead back to where these images were taken. Fifty years ago, a derelict site, sandwiched in between two railway lines (barely 3 miles from London’s West End as the crow flies) would become Kentish Town City Farm. It began a quiet revolution that swept across the country, inspiring a new movement rooted in communities.

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