We visit the community-led farm hoping to become the ‘buzzing community hub’ south Bristol deserves

Hartcliffe City Farm plans on emulating the success of Bedminster’s Windmill Hill Farm with plans afoot to create a ‘buzzing community hub’ for south Bristol.

The community interest company reopened last Spring after securing an interim lease from Bristol City Council for the 6.5 acres site. It has also secured funding to improve some of its previously rundown buildings. I visited on a damp and soggy afternoon with patches of snow still settled on the stone pathways to find building works taking place.

“Things are very low-key around here at the minute, we are gearing up to run some events and projects in time for Easter when the kids are off of school.” Farm staff, Nicky Orr told me as she showed me around the grounds.

“We’ve torn down a few buildings as they couldn’t be salvaged and there is currently work being carried out on two of the larger cabins with plans to create hire space. The roof in one of the buildings was leaking so builders are fixing it up and when work is complete we intend on using it as an education hub with cooking facilities so we can host classes using ingredients sourced from the farm.”

The farm is open six days a week, closed on Mondays, from 9am until 4.30pm. Expensive drainage work was recently carried out on the central courtyard - adding to the growing costs to keep the farm operating. Its newly refurbished houses pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and guinea pigs - a favourite for the farm’s youngest visitors.

“There is around eight part-time staff helping with running the place,” Nicky added.

“We need to work throughout this downtime so we are ready for the crowds in the summer. We are still open to the public but with our staff splitting time between here and the sister farms in Windmill Hill and St Werburghs we rely on our volunteers heavily.

“The farm has a few volunteer groups where people can come down and get involved in our planting greenhouse, helping with animals or organising some of the classes we offer. We have a lot of long-term volunteers who enjoy meeting new people and becoming a community within a community.

“The medium-term aim with the farm is to emulate Windmill Hill as that’s thriving at the moment while it looked dead and buried more than a decade ago - to be a buzzing community hub. But, there needs to be structure in place to host events and classes for people to want to come to - and [around south Bristol] there is a great opportunity for families and children to get involved here whether it’s seeing the animals, helping out or taking the classes we offer.”

The farm is always looking for volunteers to help around its 6.5 acres site, to sign up visit https://hartcliffecityfarm.org.uk/volunteering-day-at-hartcliffe-city-farm/