Vauxhall City Farm is one of the oldest and most central city farms in London being located within earshot of Big Ben and in the shadow of MI6. Despite this proximity to ‘wealth’, Lambeth is one of the most deprived boroughs in London and the farm is surrounded by high-rise blocks occupied by individuals and families, many of whom have low incomes and suffer poverty of opportunity. The farm is open Tuesday – Sunday, 10.30am – 4pm (Entry by donation) Given the open access nature of the farm, it would be very easy to dismiss VCF as simply being a cute place to visit and ‘all about the animals’. Behind the public face, the reality is that our animals, whilst much loved, are essentially a vehicle for education and change; the animals feature in many of our programmes and are key to helping our staff and volunteers engage with and deliver positive impact for both individual beneficiaries and groups from our wider community.