Have you seen the Moor Lane Community Garden?

The Moor Lane Community Garden has been developed through a co-design approach with local community and resident groups, the City of London Corporation and its culture district, Culture Mile and award-winning landscape, art and architecture practice, Wayward.

Inspired by the iconic architecture of the Barbican and London Wall, this temporary installation responds to the area’s design and history, while exploring new and exciting ways to green our streets.

The new urban green space will be a testbed for a future landscaping project in Moor Lane, incorporating feedback from locals to create a long-lasting green space informed by the community who use it most.

Have you seen it?

If you have please let us know what you think.

The garden includes a mixture of drought tolerant, low maintenance plants that provide flowers and fragrance all year round. Highlights include classic scented evergreens like rosemary, lavender and wormwood, paired with the structural forms of euonymus and euphorbias and dotted with flowering grasses; delicate perennial flowers, trailing climbers and blossoming trees like the giant leaved Foxglove tree and eye-catching Cherry Trees provide a rich landscape for insects and pollinators.

This long-term project aims to provide more biodiversity and tree-planting in the area and will be implemented upon completion of the largescale development of 21 Moorfields.

Following a series of collaborative workshops with the local community, the design takes inspiration from the iconic architecture of the Barbican and London Wall. Each planter is informed by elements of castle architecture such as crenellations, flanking and buttresses, using a combination of smooth honed and textured finishes to mirror the Barbican’s distinctive concrete structure.

As Moor Lane sits at the gateway to Culture Mile – the City of London’s culture district which stretches from Farringdon to Moorgate, the Moor Lane Community Garden also incorporates the new Culture Mile Public Realm branding, providing a creative visual identity to the area.

In Spring 2021, a new poetry commission will be launched within the installation, encouraging residents, visitors and City workers to visit and enjoy the new space. Barbican Young Poet alumnus Kit Finnie, in collaboration with the Guildhall School and Music & Drama, will develop a site specific piece for the garden, alongside a number of poetry and writing workshops with multiple community groups and organisation in the local area. These workshops will culminate in the creation of a final poem that will be installed throughout the garden.

Culture Mile

Culture Mile is the City of London’s cultural district, stretching from Farringdon to Moorgate, Led by the City of London Corporation, with the Barbican, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of London. Together, the five partners are creating a vibrant, creative area in the north-west corner of the Square Mile.