Forum topic: Come to the aid of Enfield's special vineyard
Come to the aid of Enfield's special vineyard
PGC Webmaster
19 Apr 2023 20:15 6827
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Save London's vineyard
An appeal by Forty Hall Community Vineyard
Forty Hall Community Vineyard has suffered three years of bad harvests and is now at risk of closure if we don't yield a good crop this year. We urgently need £85,000 of equipment and resources to manage the vineyard and protect our vines from disease. Most of all we need the tractor pictured above to reliably carry out essential disease prevention work. Please donate today!
Forty Hall Community Vineyard is a place of sanctuary and social connection for local people. It is also London's only commercial scale vineyard since the Middle Ages, a unique heritage site in Enfield, North London. As a pioneering 'ecotherapy' project, the income from the sales of our award-winning certified organic wines is put back into maintaining our vineyard and delivering health and wellbeing activities for the benefit of our community.
The vines are largely cared for by a dedicated group of over one hundred volunteers, who attend throughout the year. we also welcome the wider community in for events and visits to enjoy the sanctuary of this unique green space in London.
Since 2009, the vineyard has been thriving, but has suffered three years of poor harvests, due to adverse weather conditions and devastating powdery mildew that we were unable to control with the equipment we currently have. Without urgent funding to improve our equipment and resources, there is a serious and very real risk of there being no harvest in 2023, meaning no more wine to sell - and the end of London's vineyard.
We have managed our finances well enough to sustain the project through three disappointing harvests and a pandemic, but we cannot survive another year without monetary support. The biggest investment required is for a reliable vineyard tractor (£55,000) so that we can spray (organically) exactly when we need to and prevent the spread of disease. We have already raised the funds for a sprayer, but we also need to pay for more supervision of the vineyard, to support the hard work of the volunteers. This will give us the best chance for a healthier yield of grapes that will produce wine for us to sell and secure the future of London's pioneering vineyard.
For donations of £100 or more, we'll be inviting you to a special event in the vineyard to raise a glass of our wine and say a big thank you. We hope to see you there, with our tractor.
We're also looking for corporate support - please email if you'd like to help us as part of your CSR mission.
Links
Vineyard appeals for help to buy ‘essential’ tractor after three bad harvests (Enfield Dispatch 18 April 2023)
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Come to the aid of Enfield's special vineyard
Basil Clarke
19 Apr 2023 20:38 6828
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One was that it was the creation of the volunteer-run vineyard in 2009 that led its owners, Capel Manor College, to reassess the role of Forty Hall Farm. They saw that instead of being just somewhere to give agricultural students some hands-on experience, it could become a community-enriching enterprise offering opportunities for volunteers and education to visitors.
The other was how volunteering could help people improve their life opportunities. To quote her words:
“As well as practical skills, such as sowing seeds, volunteering helps people to build soft skills – like being able to work in a team, turning up for work every day – the skills people sometimes lose if they’re out of work or have been unwell for a long time.
“It’s not about expecting people to straight away become a gardener. Maybe they leave with the confidence to go on to more formal training or employment elsewhere. It’s a progression rather than a direct impact.”
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