The Markfield Legacy Garden
A collaboration between Haringey Council, The Friends of Markfield Park, Wild City Studio and a wealth of volunteers and supporters, all coming together with a shared vision to create a unique community garden in the heart of Markfield Park.
Wild City Studio were inspired by this location long before creating the garden, recognising its potential to celebrate the area's beautiful industrial character and heritage while becoming a wild, immersive natural space for everyone to enjoy. The old concrete walls that form the bones of the garden are linked to the Beam Engine's history, acting as sewage filtration beds when the pumping system was active.
The space has had many lives. During WW2 it became pig sheds and allotments to help feed local people — an effort important enough to draw a royal visit to the pig pens. After the pumping station closed in the 1960s, the concrete beds became a meanwhile play space — climbing frames and sand where the filtration channels once ran. It was later given funding to become a conservation garden with support from The National Lottery. In more recent times, the space had become overgrown and underutilised — but the mix of wild plants and the framework of the old concrete walls inspired Wild City Studio to create a show garden for the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show in 2023.
With support from sponsors Project Giving Back, the show garden demonstrated how innovative and affordable landscaping techniques can create wild, resilient community gardens while celebrating local character and heritage. The show garden needed a permanent home, and there was no better place than to reimagine it as the Markfield Legacy Garden. With the support of Haringey Council and The Friends of Markfield Park, the community garden was born.
"An optimistic vision of what can be achieved when passionate people come together under one banner to create, steward and grow something meaningful."
The garden was delivered as a zero-waste project, ensuring no waste material left the site and instead was reused throughout the garden in many different ways. Site waste became resilient growing substrates for a wide range of dynamic wild planting, while good-quality topsoil was reinstated into food forests and allotments to grow food and forage for local schools and visitors. The space celebrates a balance between wild ecology, local industrial character and, of course, the beautifully multicultural community that calls this area home.
It is an optimistic vision of what can be achieved when passionate people come together under one banner to create, steward and grow something meaningful. The garden will continue to seek funding opportunities to evolve the space and work alongside local community groups to ensure it remains enriching and leaves a lasting legacy.
A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed so far through sponsorship, crowdfunding, volunteering and the local school gardening clubs.