Surrey Docks Farm is a working city farm on the Thames Path in London. We educate local people about farming and where their food comes from.
The Farm occupies a 2.2 acre site on the south bank of the river Thames in Rotherhithe. We have a lovely farmyard with a range of animals to meet. A small orchard, working blacksmith and wildlife area. Animal feed can be purchased in the farm shop (£1 bag), available from our volunteers during opening hours.
Temporarily closed
Sending a big thanks to all our wonderful volunteers and staff who are keeping the animals well cared for and the Farm open to visit over the festive period.
The team are here all year round, carrying on with their animal care duties through heat waves and snow storms… farmers are awesome!
Happy Christmas Eve! We’re open from 10am - 4pm today!
Pop in for a festive farm walk and feed the animals, or get some last minute shopping in the farm shop - from cranberry sauce to stocking filler gift ideas!
Congratulations! Back in September at the London Harvest Festival we were delighted to recognise one of our volunteers with the annual award for a young person who has shown particular dedication and commitment – chosen from all the city farms!
Karl joined us as a livestock volunteer back in May 2019. He’s attended consistently for two days a week and has proved himself to be a reliable, dedicated and committed volunteer. Karl is happy to help with any tasks in addition to his animal care role (including helping with tours for older people’s groups, competing in animal shows, helping deliver events and supporting maintenance tasks). He paraded in the Lord Mayor’s Show and successfully completed his Level One Animal Care diploma at the Farm.
This month we received the special trophy, which we presented to him at the Christmas Fair and then enjoyed a goat photo session the next day!
We’ve seen a huge development in his confidence and skills and are so proud of him. Well done and thank you Karl!
Congratulations! Back in September at the London Harvest Festival we were delighted to recognise one of our volunteers with the annual award for a young person who has shown particular dedication and commitment – chosen from all the city farms!
Karl joined us as a livestock volunteer back in May 2019. He’s attended consistently for two days a week and has proved himself to be a reliable, dedicated and committed volunteer. Karl is happy to help with any tasks in addition to his animal care role (including helping with tours for older people’s groups, competing in animal shows, helping deliver events and supporting maintenance tasks). He parades in the Lord Mayor’s Show and successfully completed his Level One Animal Care diploma at the Farm.
This month we received the special trophy, which we presented to him at the Christmas Fair and then enjoyed a goat photo session the next day!
We’ve seen a huge development in his confidence and skills and are so proud of him. Well done and thank you Karl!
Huge thanks to our wonderful Young Farmers, Greenagers and Youth Committee for a fantastic 2022, full of fun, laughter, exploration and learning! We wrapped up the year with games, celebrations and hot chocolates to get us all in the festive mood!
Haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet? Don’t worry! We’re open every day from 10am-4pm up to and including Christmas Eve and our farm shop is stocked with lots of gift ideas. Including these taster jars, we just have spiced apple jam left now, it’s delicious and made with apples from our orchard!
We’re excited to announce the return of our popular Piglets Club! Piglets Club enables children aged 2- 5 (accompanied by an adult) to learn about animals, plants, nature and food here on the Farm. Activities include animal handling, seasonal arts & crafts, fire building, cooking and much more!
Visit our website for full details and to book your space: www.surreydocksfarm.org.uk/piglets-club/
We’re sending many festive thanks to the Musical Mayhem team and all who took part and supported their charity Christmas Carols, they raised an incredible £438.22 in donations for the Farm! Many thanks everyone!
We were delighted to receive our Green Flag Community Award again this year!
We celebrated for a group photo with our students in the snow last week. Well done and thank you to all the participants, volunteers and staff who make the Farm such a special green and open space for all!
Thanks also to one of our local supporters who donated treats for our rabbits and guinea pigs, they were very much enjoyed by the small animals!
The livestock team have added some new gift items onto our Amazon Wishlist for anyone else who would like to buy a Christmas gift for one of our small animals or equine this year: https://www.surreydocksfarm.org.uk/amazon-wish-list/
We have recently recieved some gifts from our Amazon Wishlist so we would like to say a big thank you! Gifts included new collars for the goats and new gate locks for the animal pens. Here are some of our goats styling their new collars!
We were delighted to take part in MPGA’s Bulbs for London project this year. Thanks to MPGA and Taylors Bulbs for our free bulbs!
Our project participants were excited to receive the delivery and have been planting the bulbs along the Thames path. Our Gardening for Wellbeing group planted: Tulipa- the first, Narcissi- minnow, Allium- purple sensation. The flowers will bloom in the Spring!
What a difference a week makes! Last Monday the Farm was covered in a thick blanket of snow. The animals were all suitably intrigued by the snow, but still more interested in food!
Thanks to the GoodGym Southwark volunteers who helped out for the last farm community mission of the year! They kept warm and helped by sweeping the goat yard and clearing away the muck and ice. They finished with goat feeding and rabbit cuddles, the perfect way to end the morning!
Thanks to all the GoodGym volunteers who’ve helped us this year. 👏🏻
Thanks to all our wonderful livestock team, who have worked hard throughout this cold (and wet) week, ensuring the animals are all well-cared for! 👏🏻
Just one week til Christmas Day! We’re definitely feeling festive on the Farm!
Here are our Christmas opening times. Please check before you plan a visit as the main farm site is closed for four days.
But, even when we close to visitors, our dedicated livestock team will still be here caring for the animals!
Lunchtime snow creations also included this amazing snow-turkey!
Thanks to the GoodGym Southwark volunteers who braved the cold and foggy weather to help out last Sunday! They swept the yard, cleared dead hops, weeded and mulched, plus bagged manure. 💪🏻
Read their run report here: www.goodgym.org/reports/frozen-farm
The piglets are keeping warm during this cold weather, by cuddling up together under the heat lamp in the pig barn!
It’s a beautiful day to visit the Farm! We’re open every day (including this Sunday) up to and including Christmas Eve! Our farm shop is stocked with lots of eggs, meat and fantastic gift ideas and open daily 10am-1pm and 2pm-4pm.
We had a fantastic festive celebration with our training projects this week. We enjoyed making and sharing lunch, telling cracker jokes, giving out certificates and dancing to some Christmas classics!
Thanks to our staff, volunteers and support workers who have made the projects great fun, as well as enabling lots of learning and development opportunities. Thanks to our wonderful students for all their hard work caring for the animals, cooking chutneys, jams and more, plus growing a bounty of fruits and vegetables! Happy Christmas everyone!
In the wildlife garden the Forest School children created evergreen wreath crowns and played 'What's the time Mr Wolf?'.
The children love spotting the resident Robin who comes to see them. They have named him Roger Robin after two of the children's Grandfather. Can you spot the Robin?
The children learnt how to build a fire and how to light a fire using flint and steel. The children enjoyed toasting apple and cinnamon on the fire. They finished the session with their families joining in to drink mulled apple juice whilst sharing reflections around the fire.
In their final session the younger Forest School group had a lovely time with the ram lambs and found their ‘tickle spot’ so that when they stroke them their tails wag! The children have also enjoyed learning how to handle the guinea pigs and giving them lots of cuddles.
The pigs didn’t seem too bothered by the snow! All the piglets have been out exploring, here are two of them in the field with Curly our sow. They’re eight weeks old today, all doing well and have grown so quickly!
Last week was the final Forest School session for the year. The children spent lots of time with the rabbits and ram lambs, they built a fire together - lighting it with flint and steel. Then toasted apples and cinnamon on the fire. The children also enjoyed making a mulled apple juice as an end of year celebration!
While everyone warmed up and the animals settled back in their freshly mucked out beds; some of the big kids had great fun making a huge snowman at lunch time!
Thanks to all our volunteers, work experience and animal care students who braved the snow to care for our animals and make the paths safer for visitors.
Everyone got stuck in, including Team Cow Pat! Fantastic effort everyone 👏🏻
Last night so much snow fell on the Farm. Our animals were safely tucked up in thick straw beds, but the foxes were out playing! ❄️🦊
Thanks to one of our neighbours who shared this fantastic fox footage on our section of the Thames path.
We’ve enjoyed another beautiful frosty Winter morning on the Farm. ❄️
Come and see for yourself! We’re open 10am-4pm every day til Christmas and we’re FREE to visit!
Enjoyed your visit? We rely on donations, so if you’re able to give, please do so here: https://www.givey.com/surreydocksfarm
We are open to visit today! Brave the fog, come and see the animals, warm up in ‘The Barn’ with a coffee or hot chocolate and visit our farm shop to decorate your home and tick off some Christmas present purchases!
Surrey Docks Farm updated their business hours.
It’s been a very cold, but beautiful, week on the Farm with several frosty mornings.
The theme of the recent Forest School sessions was ‘earth’. We planted cyclamen coum into the wildlife garden patch the children are caring for, made leaf prints with clay and looked at the Elder tree: how we can identify it and what is special about the tree. We had a look at the twigs and felt the bark and the children were amazing at spotting an elder tree in the wildlife garden.
We played a game of finding the tree being led to an elder tree, using our senses to touch, feel and hug the trunk whilst keeping our eyes closed and then had to find the tree once we had opened our eyes. We introduced tool use to the group, using potato peelers to whittle elder twigs and used palm drills to take out the pith of the twig to create woodland jewellery.
The younger Forest School group love spending time with the farm animals and the
female goat kids and ram lambs are favourites. The children love stroking the ram lambs and giving them lots of cuddles!
Last week we welcomed this fantastic group of corporate volunteers from RSM UK. They helped the livestock team muck out all the animals in the morning; then they were busy helping set up for our Christmas fair, moving pruned branches from the Thames path, demolishing an old woodchip store and filling tyres with woodchip for the chickens to scratch in. Our team (and the chickens) were all very grateful for their help!
More festive fun in Farm Produce today, with the students busy making Christmas biscuits!
We also have these two nanny goats, Mimosa and Mia, to stay from Stepney City Farm. They’ll be here for a couple of months to meet Atlas the billy goat whilst he’s here from Hackney.
So we’re currently representing three of the fantastic London city farms in our goat yard!
goatsofinstagram
The older Forest School group have been working on an AQA award 'using a whittling knife’. They’ve used their Forest School skills to make whistles and a recorder using sheath knives, hacksaws and palm drills safely.
The group enjoyed building a fire and lighting the kelly kettle for hot drinks. They love having free time in the wildlife garden, putting up a stick swing and playing a game of 'You're only safe if...(e.g. you're holding an oak leaf)' the group then enjoyed identifying and comparing all their oak leaves!
The ram lambs are a favourite farm animal for the groups and they enjoy having hands-on experience with them, giving them lots of strokes!
Have you spotted some new goats in the yard? Last month we welcomed Atlas, an Anglo Nubian billy goat from Hackney City Farm. He’s here for a couple of months to breed with our nanny goats, which hopefully means goat kids arriving in April-May time!
Rotherhithe Street
London
SE165ET
Nearest Underground & Overground: Surrey Quays (East London Line), Rotherhithe (East London Line), Canada Water (Jubilee Line & East London Line) Buses: 381 - Waterloo to Peckham C10 - Victoria to Canada Water River Bus Greenland Pier is a very short walk away and the Thames Clipper service is an excellent way to arrive at the farm in style. On Foot: The farm is right on the Thames Path at Rotherhithe Street. Both Tower Bridge (upstream) and Greenwich (downstream) are about 2 miles away. Cycling: The farm is near to National Cycle Route 4 (Fishguard to Greenwich). Rotherhithe has lots of good quiet cycle paths around Greenland Dock, Southwark Park, Russia Dock - as well as the Thames Path itself. Bikes are very welcome and there is good bike parking inside the farm.
Free admission for children. Suggested donation £3 per adult visitor. Please support us with your donations.
| Monday | 10am - 4pm |
| Tuesday | 10am - 4pm |
| Wednesday | 10am - 4pm |
| Thursday | 10am - 4pm |
| Friday | 10am - 4pm |
| Saturday | 10am - 4pm |
| Sunday | 10am - 4pm |
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Bruno, our Middle White boar pig moved house last week. He’s having a rest up on the yard, to give Curly some space before her piglets arrive this month!
Our honey bees busy feeding on a huge globe artichoke flower on the youth plots. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #honeybee #bees #globeartichoke #artichokeflower #pollinators #gardenforwildlife
We borrowed this great bit of machinery and trained up our Horticulture Apprentice who got to work tackling the orchard! We let the grass grow long in Spring to provide food and shelter for wildlife, then cut it back ready for the apple harvest from late Summer. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #orchard #apprentice #nomowmay #gardenforwildlife #summer #horticultureapprentice #rhsflourishfund
Beautiful Red Admiral butterfly basking on a wall in the Farm this morning. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #butterfly #redadmiral #butterflyconservation #summer #wildlondon #gardenforwildlife
It’s all change in the pig fields! We have two Berkshire sows from Stepney City Farm staying with our Middle White boar. We’re hoping they’ll both get ‘in pig’ and we’ll then send one sow back to Stepney and will keep the other. Fingers crossed for piglets in the Autumn! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #pigs #pigsofinstagram #berkshirepigs #middlewhitepig #rarebreedpigs
The daily sheep run! This was taken not long after the sheep had been sheared, as they ran from the field to their yard for dinner. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #sheep #sheepofinstagram #ewes #lambs #sheeprun #sheepracing
We have some VERY exciting new arrivals! Snowy and Fidget arrived today from the Donkey Sanctuary. It’s great to have donkeys back on the Farm again! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #donkeysanctuary #donkey #donkeys #newarrival #southwark #visitus
Huge thanks to everyone who supported our Spring Fair last Saturday! We had a fantastic day welcoming so many people, celebrating the annual sheep shearing and raising over £2,000 to help keep the Farm running. This was all possible thanks to our dedicated staff and volunteer team who worked really hard to put the event on - you’re all amazing, thank you! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #springfair #sheepshearing #volunteer #community #teamwork #londonfarm #visitus #freeentry #rotherhithe #southwark
The Great Sheep Run! Today our ten ewes are getting their annual haircut. Visit us to watch them for free, and support our Spring Fair! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #sheeprun #sheepshearing #springfair #southwark #rotherhithe
Carrot treats for our rabbits. These are Rex rabbits and have short, thick, velvety soft fur. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #rabbitsofinstagram #rabbit #rexrabbit #rexrabbitsofinstagram
Our flock racing to the sheep pen in slow-motion. Join us on Saturday 7th May for our Spring Fair and watch our ewes getting their annual haircut - loosing their woolly coats in time for Summer! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #sheep #ewe #wool #sheepshearing #springfair #slowmotion #sheepofinstagram #southwark #rotherhithe #whatsonlondon
Takeaway breakfast! The Guinea pigs love their veggie treats. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #guineapig #guineapigs #guineapigsofinstagram
We took on these little lambs from another farm, they’re about three weeks old now and growing quickly. If you were lucky enough to buy lamb bottle-feeding tickets you’ll be meeting them this week! More slots will be added on Friday morning for the following week. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #lambs #lambing #bottlefeedinglambs #spring #southwark #rotherhithe
Fancy growing your own herbs, vegetables or fruits? Or looking for some colour to brighten up your window box? We have a great selection of plants in our mini garden centre outside the farm shop, all grown from seed in peat free compost by our community groups. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #peatfree #growyourown #plants #gardencentre #farmtofork #herbs #tomatoes #daffodils #primula #strawberryplants #shoplocal #southwark
The little ducklings are growing fast! They’ve been outside on the grass this week, enjoying the warmer weather. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #ducklings #ducks #spring #easterholiday #sothwark #visitus
Our flock is growing! We have ten ewes and seven lambs now. They love racing back to their barn and yard pen for dinner every evening. We also have four more little bottle-fed lambs that are living in the barn until they’re big enough to join the flock. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #sheep #ewe #lambs #lambsofinstagram #sheepofinstagram #lambcam #lambing2022 #southwark
Our new little piglets are very inquisitive. They all had to come over and check out their water being filled up! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #oxfordsandyandblack #pigs #weaner #piglets #rarebreed #spring #southwark
Dinner time for the sheep, all lined up munching on their hay in the barn. If you watch to the end you’ll also see our youngest lamb, who is just four days old! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #sheep #ewe #dinnertime #sheepbarn #lamb #lambsofinstagram #southwark
Our little grey Ferguson tractor was on the move! We relocated it from the field to shelter through the recent stormy weather. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #tractor #ferguson #ferguson1954 #greyfergie #tractors #southwark
This morning we’ve welcomed these beautiful little Oxford Sandy & Black weaners to the Farm. Huge thanks to @barleylandsfarmpark who have given them to us! They’re settling in really well, if you’re visiting they’re out on the yard next to our chickens. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #piglets #pigs #oxfordsandyandblack #weaners #newarrivals #whatsonlondon #freeentry #southwark
Our ducklings are growing quickly! We’ve loved introducing them to visitors at our ‘Meet the small animals’ sessions. These sessions are held in the yard from 2:30-3pm, Monday-Friday this week and next. £1 per child. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 # ducklings #easter #spring #schoolholidays #southwark #rotherhithe
The frog activity in the in the wildlife area has been continuing this week! In this great video taken by one of our wonderful volunteers you can see lots of frog spawn! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #frog #frogspawn #wildlife #spring #londonwildlife
Bisto the farm cat biding his time while he waits for a Livestock Volunteer to open the feed barn where he can go on a mouse hunt 🐁 #SurreyDocksFarm #FarmCat #CatsOfInstagram #Rotherhithe #SurreyQuays
Jammy & Dodger chilling in the sunshine this morning while one of our Livestock Volunteers mucked out their living quarters! #SurreyDocksFarm #cows #CowsOfInstagram
Breakfast time for the cows! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #aberdeenangus #londonfarm #cows #skyline #southwark #rotherhithe
The storm has been howling across the Farm, but so far there’s been minimal damage. The animals haven’t been bothered at all! Here are our cows happily tucking into their dinner as normal. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #storm #dinnertime #cows #aberdeenangus #farming #londonfarm #southwark
Monday morning Christmas tree munching! The goats are still steadily working there way through the tree pile we have here and enjoy a fresh tree each week. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #goats #goatstagram #anglonubian #toggenburg #christmastree #nowaste
New Leaf students kept warm working in the sunny greenhouse yesterday. They’ve been busy sieving the rotted wood chip, that we received last year from tree surgeons, which we’ll add as a component in our compost. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #compost #woodchip #gardening #training #education #carefarming
We have a small pile of Christmas trees that the goats are slowly munching through! They’ll eat the needles and strip the bark, then we’ll chop up the remaining wood and dry it out to use as fuel in our wood oven. #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #goats #goatsofinstagram #goatstagram #anglonubian #reuse #christmastree
Livestock volunteers keep our pony entertained and exercised along the Thames path! #surreydocksfarm #cityfarm #se16 #pony #shetlandpony #miniatureshetlandpony #thamespath
