We will be selling organic seedlings on behalf of St Mary’s Secret Garden, The local fire-dept may bring along their fire-engine, an exciting workshop and lots of yummy cakes and treats…
Our first gardening date had quite an impact. It was a working weekend with Chug volunteers. They stripped the rust off the allotment and painted it white. Well done all it looks amazing.
Planned over the next few weeks; Duck house and duck area being built for our imminent arrivals – seven White Campbell ducks, willow trellis for the allotment; some children to come down and decorate the floating barge.
Please contact if you would like to get involved in any of our schemes.
This year we will be opening our Cafe again!
We will be selling tea and coffee, cakes and other sweet treats. We will also be holding workshops and other events. The profits from the cafe will go to our project Greening Kingsland Basin.
We want to set up a community orchard, plant wildflowers, marginal pond plants and water lilies to attract all the birds that have disappeared due to the development over the last 5 years.
We are also trying to make and plant floating planters and nesting areas for waterfowl.
Oh to be in the Floating Allotment in the Summer Time
The Cafe will be open from 12 Noon to 5 Pm
The dates are as Follows:
15 June: Cafe Workshop: How to save a baby’s life
lifesaving and CPR.
20 July – Cafe Workshop to be announced
17 August -Cafe Constructing growing screens
floating planters how to make and construction day.
21 and 22 September – Cafe Open House London – open boats
19 October – Cafe How to make your own soap and why it’s better than the soap from shops
So if it’s just to come and have a cup of tea and read the newspapers or look at the floating allotment or our bees. We welcome you throughout the summer.
Look forward to seeing you here!
Anyone who has been to one of our fundraising events recently – this is where some of the tea-and-cake cash has gone. CHUG recently bought some new pontoons to join together the moorings on the two sides of the basin, and volunteers spent the day collecting them and putting them together, with the aid of a leaky drysuit and a lot of trial and error.
Joining the two sides is important because at the moment the moorings are cut off from the canal towpath – access to the basin is through the new development on Kingsland Rd. This makes it impossible to hold events that draw people in off the towpath, like last year’s hugely successful cafe that ran every weekend throughout June, July and August.
It will be another few months before the development on the southwest corner of the basin will be finished, and the towpath access will be open again. Keep an eye on the website, sign up for our newsletters (bottom right of the homepage), or like us on Facebook to find out about events coming up.
CHUG will be opening the basin up as part of the Capital Growth Edible Open Gardens day, on Saturday the 15th of September. It’s a combined event with Capital Bee, so we’ll be running little boat trips to see our beehive in its secret location too.
As usual there will also be tea and cake on the lovely floating pontoons, and a chance to meet CHUG and find out more about our projects, history and exciting plans for the future.
Come down between 11am and 4pm on Saturday the 15th of September.
On Sunday the 23rd of September we will be opening the basin as part of London Open House.
We’ll have tours of a few boats, boat rides, and tea and homemade cake on the tranquil communal floating pontoons. Drop in for a nose around, we’ll be open from 10am to 5pm.
Neighbours – come and say hi over a cuppa and a piece of boat-home-made cake!
Residents have now moved into to the first completed blocks around the basin – Downham Wharf, at the north east side of the basin, and Commercial Wharf and Canal Wharf off Kingsland Road. To welcome our new neighbours and give old & new residents a chance to meet, CHUG is holding an informal Residents’ Tea Party at the moorings: Please join us on Sunday 16 September from 3 to 5pm!
As part of our new Outreach & Education program, CHUG offers a series of Community Skill Sharing Sessions this summer. Our first session is giving practical advise on tying knots. By James Hewson.
Tying Knots • Thursday, 12th July • 8pm • at the moorings
Access is via 305 Kingsland Road. Please call James on 07711 031318.
Open to local residents!
A documentary that hopes to ‘change the way Londoners buy food’ uses CHUG’s work with the allotment as an example of people who are working to make healthy, local and sustainably produced food accessible to everyone. The film will premiere on the 15th July at the Gallery Café in Bethnal Green. The independent film features award winning journalist Felicity Lawrence, scholars Tim Lang and Jason Moore, and UK farmer Michael Duveen.
