Loughborough Estate Arboretum

Over the winter of 2018/19, we were approached by some extremely impressive residents of Loughborough Estate in Brixton, who had fought to secure funding to improve the grounds of their estate by planting a new community orchard. It was to be funded by the Mayor of London’s Greener City Fund, with support from the Woodland Trust.

Here’s a short film made by LondonLive during the original launch of the project:

When we were asked by the residents to manage the project, we came up with the idea of broadening the variety of trees that we were planting, so that as well as there being an orchard at the heart of the scheme, we would also include 15 species of non-fruiting trees, and the project would become a new arboretum for Brixton!

We held a number of volunteer planting days at the site which were very well attended. As well as the 31 new trees planted, each of a different variety, the growing areas were also surrounded by a perimeter hedge of native plants donated by the Woodland Trust.