Spitalfields City Farm, London

A 1.3-acre city farm in Tower Hamlets, east London, close to Brick Lane. It started in 1978 as an allotment site on the wasteland left by a former railway goods depot, later added animals to become a city farm, and achieved charity status in 1980.

Open Tuesday to Sunday and drawing roughly 18,000 visitors a year. It began as an allotment site and later added animals. Since 2008 it has held an annual 'Oxford vs Cambridge Goat Race', a comic take on the Boat Race that has become a fixture of the local calendar.

It gained charity status in 1980 and has been run as a registered charity since. Entry is free and the operation depends on donations, grants and event income.

It has kept a piece of former railway wasteland in community food-growing use for almost half a century, drawing around 18,000 visitors a year, with events such as the goat race serving as both a profile-raiser and a fundraising anchor. Publicly available information does not set out its running costs or the stability of its funding, and the charity model dependent on donations and grants is the same one shared by other city farms.

This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.

• ArticleSpitalfields City Farm - Wikipedia ↗en.wikipedia.org