Travel inspirations: The Elephant & Castle Urban forest

Both myself and my immediate family have either grown up or spent a lot of time around London's infamous Elephant and Castle. It's infamous as being generally known as one are most londoners would be happy to see wiped off the map. Whilst it's back streets consist of many pleasant houses and streets, sadly it's better know for the atrocious roundabout, consisting of worn tower blocks, rambling badly lit and dangerous under passes, a sickly pink shopping centre and a general seething mass of ugly concrete.

Various local and city wide governments and bodies have talked about erasing the housing tower blocks and starting again for many years and finally, it looks like they're making a start. The Haygate estate has been emptied of all but 7 families and southwark council have controversially under sold it to land lease for a building project that is supposed to include a proportion of social housing, but a proportion that is nowhere near a replacement for what the estate used to offer and is rapidly deceasing.

Bearing all this in mind, imagine my surprise and delight to find that the abandoned estate has turned into a combination of community gardens and an urban forest.

The Elephant & Castle Urban forest group has mainly been working to ensure that the countless trees that have been growing around the estate for the 50 years of it's life are recognized for their value environmentally and commercially and are preserved when the estate is finally pulled down. Alongside this the group have created a regular skills school and a couple of community gardens, they also run a weekly tour of the site, which I attended.

It was a fascinating tour, walking through ghostly abandoned buildings and pathways, with beautiful trees, bushes, flowers, fruit and vegetables nestled amongst smashed glass, graffiti, flapping curtains and random personal possessions.

Take a look through my photos (Nestled amongst the London gallery) to get more of an idea, take a look at the groups website, if you're in London, make a visit and revel in the wonders of mother nature and her ability to rear her head just about anywhere.