About us

The Calthorpe inner city community garden was born in 1983 and has been thriving ever since. Help us to create more history and add yourself to Calthorpe’s legacy

A green oasis in Kings Cross

Improving the physical and mental well-being of Camden residents with Mother Nature’s help since 1984.

We open 7 days a week and provide weekly activities in our garden space for families with children.

Core Organisational Objectives

  • Sport

    Creating better social conditions through sport and gardening activities allows us to provide opportunities for people to meet, exercise and take care of each other and the environment.

  • Education

    Through the power of volunteering, our Early Years groups and nature classes, we are able to provide our community of all ages with vital skills and opportunities for social interaction.

  • Environment

    Managing our sustainable green space and community facilities through our living lab project enables us to improve our environment for all to enjoy.

  • Diversity

    Diversity is a gift which we at Calthorpe cherish. Our community welcomes people from all backgrounds. We create a healthy and inclusive atmosphere for everyone.

Our Services

  • Sustainable food growing incorporating a closed loop food cycle, vegetarian cafe and waste recycling facility

  • Supervised activities for children aged 0-14 and their families

  • Sports development including coaching and training for young people

  • Community classes and activities delivered directly or with partner organisations

  • A horticultural volunteering and training programme for people with learning disabilities and mental health issues

People from a diverse range of cultures participate in and enrich our activities. Our volunteer and training programmes teach new skills and provide opportunities for social interaction and outdoor exercise. Environmental and food growing sessions develop awareness of organic methods and composting. Many members have their own mini-allotments encouraging community integration. Our sports pitch provides programmes to improve health and wellbeing for young people whilst generating vital revenue. We provide respite from over-crowded housing in our Early Years drop-in and weekend play provision for children.

Our Impact

The Living Lab project is a community-based model of urban sustainability and demonstrates an innovative, closed-loop food-waste-energy system providing new opportunities for public engagement, local participation, education and training. We grow a wide range of foods; harvest produce to create nutritious meals in our community kitchen; digest food waste to create renewable biogas and liquid fertilizer; use the fertilizer to enhance plant growth; and use biogas for making tea for our volunteers in the volunteer hub.

We aim to develop the project into an environmental educational research facility and a sustainable social enterprise. With volunteers, we have created additional raised beds.

Imagine if we transformed our cities into urban eco oases that supported opportunities for green employment, where biogas made from food waste replaced fossil fuels and nutrients recycled to replace artificial fertiliser. Imagine if we used public spaces to grow food for local consumption.

Less than 10 minutes’ walk from Kings Cross, the Calthorpe Living Lab is creating the blueprint for just this!

Our cutting-edge closed-loop experiment takes organic waste from the community kitchen and our local resident food waste collection scheme to feed our anaerobic digester, which turns the waste into biogas for cooking and heating, and liquid fertiliser to grow more food for our community kitchen. Our off-grid food growing area has polytunnels, raised beds, a digester and wormeries. Together with researchers, engineers, students and volunteers, we carry out work, which we hope will one day be part of everyday sustainable living. If we spread the idea of waste as a precious resource and share what we learn, the model could be replicated anywhere, including places where food, fertiliser, and fuel are scarce.

Our History

From the beginning of the 19th century the site of the Calthorpe Community Garden had predominantly been leased to Thomas Cubitt, an eminent builder responsible for a substantial part of the construction in London.

During the 1960s the land was purchased by the Lyon Group who had planning permission for a 70,000 square foot office development. However they went bankrupt just after they had put the office foundations on site, so Camden acquired the land. In 1980 they prepared to sell the land for offices, based on the previous outdated planning permission.

Local residents were concerned about the impact on their lives of such a large development on their doorstep and there followed a local campaign which included petitions, lobbying councilors and sending a delegation to Camden Council. The community’s efforts were rewarded and in June 1983 when Camden allocated money to develop the site for gardens, play space and under fives activities for the residents of Kings Cross. In 1984 the Calthorpe Community Garden became a charity and a company limited by guarantee.

Growth and Change: a documentary by Ruth Cebrian

Since 1984, Calthorpe has been supporting its diverse community in a variety of ways, including providing sports and education to its users. With a positive impact on the environment, we have ingrained sustainable practices into all that we do. Check out our 30th anniversary video here to find out what has been happening over the past four decades!

 

Calthorpe Community Garden: An oasis building community in central London, a documentary by Claudia Nuzzio and Les Levidow

This 15 minute long video showcases some of our programmes. Check it if you want to learn more about the positive impact they had on our community in their own words.

 

Camden New Journal article:

Organic Growth

As the Calthorpe Project celebrates 40 years, it’s on the lookout for contributors to help chronicle its history