Community Garden

What is the Community Garden?

The Community Garden in St Albans is a CDA Herts initiative bringing together diverse local communities to foster cohesion and wellbeing. Established in 2010 on land generously provided by Oaklands College, it offers a safe, welcoming space where people work side by side, share skills, and support one another.

The garden also hosts other organisations, provides expert advice, and serves as a hub for local charities.

Current groups include: St Albans Adult Learning Services, HAWA (Herts Asian Women’s Association), Hertbeats, FoodSmiles, St Albans Child Minders, St Albans Beekeepers, Hill End, and the Scouts.

What we do

We help people connect with nature, each other, and practical skills. Here’s how:

• 🌿Older people – opportunities for those without gardens to enjoy nature and reduce isolation.
• 🌿Inclusive access – raised beds and accessible paths for people with different abilities.
• 🌿Community diversity – welcoming minority ethnic groups including St Albans’ Bangladeshi community.
• 🌿Families and individuals – a friendly place for single-parent families and individuals to get involved.
• 🌿Health referrals – gentle activity and growing through referrals from health providers.
• 🌿Celebrations – annual open days to showcase achievements and produce.
• 🌿Evening sessions – sessions with Passport to Leisure, Daylight Club, Czechs & Slovaks, and St Albans Woodcraft Folk.

Programmes & partnerships

We work with schools, colleges, and youth programmes so learners can gain real-world experience and qualifications such as City & Guilds and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Partners including HACRO and Groundwork use the garden for skills training. We’re also a community partner in the National Citizens Service for 15–17-year-olds.

Our volunteers make the garden thrive. Thanks to Ken & Phil, who help keep the grass cut and do the background work necessary to make the project work.

Acknowledgement to the assistance of Brian Gibson, Life President of Hertbeats, who played a pivotal role in establishing the space.

🏆 November 2018 we won the National Groundwork Community Award for Best Community Group Contribution to Community Cohesion.

📸 Community garden gallery

Moments from the garden – people learning, growing, and spending time together.

📍 Location and directions

Find us on what3words: robot.seats.fault

(Take the A1057 (Hatfield Road) from Hatfield towards St Albans. Just before you get to Oaklands College (on the right) turn left into Colney Heath Lane. You’ll see a brown sign to Earthworks on the right – follow those signs. At a roundabout (after a few hundred yards), go right (CH Lane goes left), bear left almost immediately (another roundabout) and, where the road bends to the right, turn left into Hixberry Lane. Continue for about three hundred yards and you’ll see a double gate on the right, go through the gate & you will travel past the Earthworks site. Just carry along the lane through a couple of gates and at the end you will see a small car park.)

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