Gardens

Secret gardens have a way of capturing the imagination, and our ‘hidden’ walled gardens don’t disappoint. Each of the courtyard gardens at the Charterhouse, seven in total including Charterhouse Square, is a distinctive ‘garden room’ that helps tell a unique part of our story.

Tucked between the City of London and Islington, minutes from Barbican and Farringdon stations, our gardens are open to visitors through guided garden tours and our Summer Open Garden Evenings.

Gardens for residents, visitors and wildlife

At their core, our courtyard gardens are maintained to support the health and wellbeing of our almshouse residents, offering a peaceful green sacntuary right on their doorstep and opportunities for hands-on involvement through our Gardening Club.

Beyond resident life, these spaces help us to generate income to support our charitable purpose including through weddings, parties and corporate event hires.

We are equally delighted to share them with the public through guided garden tours led by an expert member of our Horticulture team, and summer events.

A wildlife haven in the city

We are proud to be a Grade 2 Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), providing vital habitat for wildlife in one of London’s most urban settings. Our Horticulture team is committed to increasing biodiversity and gardening sustainably, working with Pollinating London Together (PLT) to monitor and improve habitat for pollinators – from native solitary bees to resident moths and beetles.

Their 2024 Greenspace Habitat Surveys for the gardens and Charterhouse Square tell us that while we are scoring highly for our courtyard gardens, there is room for improvement in Charterhouse Square. We are working to find ways to improve the habitat and biodiversity of the square and Master’s Garden especially, including using this plants for pollinators matrix, over the next few years as part of the five year plan for the gardens.

We are also very proud to be a founding member of the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path, a neighbourhood garden project which aims to spport urban biodiversity through creating a network of community-planted green spaces that provide food and shelter for insects.

Community

Gardens provide a fantastic opportunity to engage communites both inside and outside our walls. Many of our almshouse residents are very interested in taking part in “citizen science” projects such as taking part in the PLT’s annual pollinator count and contibuting to the iNaturalist  science network where participants record, share, and identify wildlife to help map biodiversity.

We also work with partners to deliver workshops including for schools and community groups. We have delivered an intergenerational bee workship for our residents and a group of 9 – 10 year olds from St Peter and St Paul in parternship with PLT, the Clerkenwell Pollinator Pathway, and postgraduate biological science researchers from Queen Mary University of London, and a pond workship in parternship with London National Park City.