A slice of the countryside tucked away in London’s most populated borough, the Canal Club Community Garden is a space full of opposites. It is bursting with vegetation and greenery, but stowed away between the high-rise brutalist flats of Globe Town, Tower Hamlets.
However, not so long ago, this thriving garden was under threat of demolition by Tower Hamlets Council to make room for an extension to the Wellington Estate.
Protecting this community green space was not easy. Sally Hone, a self-described “guardian of the garden”, is still recovering from the four-year Save Our Space campaign to protect the garden, alongside the community centre next door.
While consultations were being held, the real campaigning happened among the plant pots and the gardening tools. The community continued to use every inch of the garden to show the council how vital it was to the residents of the nearby estates.
On October 12, 2022, the planning application to demolish the area was withdrawn without warning by the council. While Hone and the other campaigners were thrilled with the news, they are taking a well-deserved rest to plan the next phase of their community garden.
The community centre, now called the Canal Club, was also saved from demolition. It has recently reopened its doors for communal use again, so the gardeners will have a space to use the toilet and kitchen facilities. The centre was given to the Wellington Estate by the Greater London Council back in the 1970s; it was designed by social architect Julian Sofaer and once included a laundrette. The space has a legacy of uniting the estate residents as a community and the garden does the same. “One of the good things that happened through the four years when we were despairing, is how everyone got together,” Hone says. “Dominique, my partner, says there’s a sense that people really do look out for each other. And there’s now something joyous about walking around in this area.”
Hone originally stumbled upon this green patch 13 years ago when she was passing through on her canal boat and has moored there ever since. She opened the garden shortly after in 2010: “It was not managed at all, so we just decided to plot beds and grow the garden,” she said. While the vast Victoria Park is on the other side of the canal, nothing beats being able to get your hands dirty and make a difference to a small garden shared with your neighbours.
Hazel Norman, Chief Executive of the British Ecological Society Community, explains why a community garden can be beneficial over other green spaces, especially in a large city. “Gardens are a fantastic way to create space for and support nature in cities like London because they directly engage and involve local people,” says Norman. “They can bring a host of benefits to both us and the environment, including improvements to our wellbeing, fighting climate change, increasing biodiversity, and economic benefits.”
Over the years that Hone has been moored on the community garden’s bank, she has met and introduced lots of the local people in Globe Town. “We’ve got to know lots of people living on the estate who feel very isolated,” she says. “It’s a place of refuge for them. People come and help us weed and garden. It’s also really important to keep wildlife going; we encourage certain insects, butterflies, and bees by making sultry homes for them.
“Hardly anyone’s got a garden. This is one the things we fought for in the campaign because everyone deserves a green space,” says Hone.
One of the garden’s regulars, Pauline Hall, lives on a nearby estate and comes and to enjoy the wildlife as much as possible. “I used to come down here during the lockdown. I just started doing a little bit of painting here and it kind of morphed into being part of the committee for the campaign.”
Along with other local artists, Hall joined in the efforts to create artwork in response to actions the council were taking in preparation for the demolition. She has lived in Tower Hamlets for over 45 years and has seen the community change over the decades. Hall was eager to help the campaigners, as she saw how the garden strengthened the bond between the local people. “I did some cyanotypes [a type of photograph] of the cherry blossom,” she says. “The fact any of this could be demolished, it’s just shocking.”
Hone explains how many things in the garden are made by recycling objects. For example, the dome shelter that sits at the heart of the space was built by using pallets donated by the local commercial printers and old bits of guttering have been transformed into miniature seedling nurseries. The plants and produce grown in the garden are especially loved by the Bangladeshi families nearby. Hone explains how they will often trade the fruit and vegetables with them in return for some delicious meals.
Different people visit the garden, from NHS patients prescribed with outdoor time, to book clubs, to kids from the estate coming to the weekly pizza club. Sally has only one rule: “Use it how you would your own garden” – that is excluding parties of course!
With the campaign over and the application withdrawn, they are still waiting to hear from the council, now led by Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire party, for an official confirmation that their garden is here to stay. In the meantime, Hone and her guardians are busy sowing the seeds for the garden’s new and peaceful era. “With our expertise, we hope to run art workshops, so that will start to take place this summer”.
While it is only a small patch of land, Hone emphasises the huge difference it makes in the community, and how they will continue to reap the benefits of their saved garden throughout the summer.
The garden officially re-opened on Sunday 2 April and will be open every Tuesday and Sunday 2-6pm until the end of October. Expect yoga and Tai Chi classes, as well as arts and crafts, drawing and printing sessions.
The Canal Club Community Garden can be found at Belmont Wharf, E2 9HP. Keep an eye on the Canal Club’s Twitter and Facebook for updates on the activities in the spring and summer months.
For the rest of our series on green spaces, click here.
