In early 2024, the Sarah Jane Leigh Charitable Trust (SJLCT) awarded a year-long grant to the Museum of Homelessness to support the creation of a new therapeutic community garden at Manor House Lodge in Finsbury Park. Eighteen months later, that once-overgrown space has become a thriving green haven and an inspiring example of how care, creativity, and collaboration can help rebuild lives.
A Space for Healing and Connection
From the start, the Museum of Homelessness envisioned the garden as much more than an outdoor project. It was designed as a welcoming environment for people affected by homelessness — a place of recovery, reflection, and belonging. Today, it serves thousands of visitors each year, offering a safe landing point for those newly arrived at the museum, a recreational and social area for community members, and a peaceful retreat for volunteers and local residents alike.
The transformation has strengthened community ties throughout the Finsbury Park area. Regular Tuesday gardening sessions have drawn a growing group of volunteers who have together contributed more than 7,000 hours of work. They planted roughly 2,000 bulbs and 2,000 snowdrops, restored paths and ponds, and even shared Christmas Day dinner in the garden for 65 people — a powerful reminder of what shared purpose can achieve.
From Vision to Reality
When work began, the goal was to create an inclusive, sustainable, and educational garden shaped by the community’s own aspirations. The results have exceeded expectations. Using recycled and donated materials wherever possible, participants built composters, planters, and a “welcome wall” that greets visitors at the entrance. Partnerships with local organisations — including the Inner Temple Garden, Phytology Garden, the Royal Parks, and the Woodshop of Earthly Delights — added expertise, workshops, and donations of plants and materials. Each collaboration deepened the garden’s roots in both sustainability and community engagement.
Accessibility and calm were central to the design. New pathways, sensory planting, and shaded seating areas ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, can enjoy the space. Benches by the pond and sensory borders provide quiet places for reflection, while open areas invite connection and conversation. A rose garden and wildflower meadow encourage biodiversity and have quickly become focal points for contemplation and remembrance.
Learning, Creativity, and Remembrance
Beyond horticulture, the garden has grown into a classroom and a creative studio. Volunteers learned landscaping, composting, pond management, and planting cycles. Workshops in art, sustainable nutrition, and woodworking added new skills and confidence. Artist in Residence Jacob V. Joyce even filmed a short piece on site, capturing the spirit of cooperation that defines the project.
Equally meaningful is the memorial area within the garden, a sacred space where community members and their loved ones are remembered. Events such as the celebration of the late Steve Broe — whose ideas helped shape the garden’s early design — have made this area a gentle tribute to those lost yet still part of the community’s story. A memorial bench donated by the homelessness charity Spires now sits among the roses as a lasting reminder of solidarity and shared humanity.
The Outdoor Room and Ongoing Growth
Another highlight has been the creation of an “Outdoor Room” — a greenhouse installed in March 2025 following design workshops with community members. This bright, warm space is already filled with seedlings and gardening plans and serves as a sanctuary for those who may not yet feel comfortable joining indoor activities. It reflects the project’s understanding that healing takes many forms and that safety, creativity, and structure all play vital roles in recovery.
Even challenges have brought learning. A sapling-planting day produced 200 new trees along Seven Sisters Road, though some were lost to pollution. Rather than a setback, this experience has inspired fresh thinking about how to make the garden’s boundaries more resilient and environmentally adaptive.
A Living Legacy
Only a short time ago, Manor House Lodge was an unused, overgrown patch of land. Today it stands as a vibrant ecosystem of plants, wildlife, and human connection. The therapeutic garden is now firmly embedded in the daily life of the Museum of Homelessness — a living, breathing symbol of renewal and care. Visitors often describe the sense of calm they feel upon entering, while volunteers speak of the friendships, purpose, and stability they have gained through tending it.
Support from the Sarah Jane Leigh Charitable Trust has been instrumental in making this vision a reality. By funding the project, the Trust has helped create not only a garden but a model of community wellbeing that will continue to grow for years to come. The garden now serves as a blueprint for how inclusive, therapeutic spaces can help people affected by homelessness reconnect with themselves, with others, and with the natural world.
As the garden continues to flourish, so too does the community that built it — proof that when compassion is nurtured, remarkable things can take root.
