Mudchute Park and Farm

Mudchute Park and Farm in East London is a 32-acre site—one of Europe's largest urban farms—built on Victorian dockland mud that once served as Millwall Football Club's first stadium. Created in 1977 after local residents successfully campaigned against housing development, the farm now houses over 100 animals beneath Canary Wharf's skyscrapers. Dock engineer Frederic Eliot Duckham originally created the land by pumping dredged sludge from Millwall Docks.

London · from the walk “Docks to Dollars” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Mudchute Park and Farm, Pier Street, London E14 3HP

What was the land of Mudchute Park and Farm in London originally used for?

Look around you. Sheep grazing in a meadow... llamas chewing lazily in the shade... and right behind them, the gleaming towers of Canary Wharf piercing the sky. It's one of London's most surreal contrasts. Welcome to Mudchute Park and Farm.......... The name "Mudchute" is exactly what it sounds like. This was once the dumping ground for mud dredged from the Millwall Docks. A novel pneumatic device pumped liquefied mud through a pipe over East Ferry Road, shooting it onto this land. The system was designed by dock engineer Frederic Eliot Duckham. And here's a detail most people walk right past... Duckham's son, Alexander, went on to found his own lubricating oil company right here in Millwall in eighteen ninety-nine — a company that became the second largest independent lubricating oil brand in Britain. So the engineer who created this stinking mud heap... fathered an oil dynasty. Maritime engineering runs in the family.......... The mud stank Terribly. Poplar Borough Council continually complained to the dock company that it was causing disease — including diphtheria — among locals, but the dumping never stopped. And yet... ironically, that foul-smelling mud was actually full of minerals and nutrients, providing ideal growing conditions for the allotments that later appeared here.......... Now, here's something most visitors never suspect. In eighteen ninety, the landlord of the nearby George pub, William Clark, leased a plot of the flat ground and built an athletics stadium — which became the First home of Millwall Athletic football club. It was their first purpose-built ground, with a grandstand seating six hundred people and an overall capacity of up to fifteen thousand. The smell remained though. England international Fred Pelly famously declared he didn't mind playing on the ground, but he objected to falling down on it — because the stench wouldn't come off for weeks!......... During World War Two, the higher ground here became a military site. Four anti-aircraft guns were positioned to defend the docks, manned by the one hundred and fifty-fourth Battery of the fifty-second Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. Those guns were fired by remote control using radar to track enemy aircraft. You can still see a decommissioned anti-aircraft gun on display here today.......... Then came the nineteen seventies. The Port of London Authority, realizing Millwall Docks would close, negotiated with the Greater London Council to hand this land over for housing. But the community fought back! Residents' groups, spearheaded by the Association of Island Communities, campaigned for this land to become public open space, including an urban farm. In nineteen seventy-seven, Mudchute Park and Farm was officially created.......... Today it covers thirty-two acres, making it one of the largest urban farms in Europe — home to over a hundred animals, set in the heart of East London. It has been supported by many firms based at Canary Wharf — those same towers that now loom just to the north. From toxic mud heap... to football ground... to wartime gun emplacement... to a farm where children feed lambs in the shadow of global finance. Not a bad second life for a pile of Victorian sludge.

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