Bees and mushrooms at Wimbledon's rooftop farm
Plus: Our local news roundup and recommendations for the week ahead
Dear Wimblers — welcome back! Or, for those of you who have just joined, thanks for coming!
This is only our second-ever edition of The Wimble, and we already have more than 300 people on our mailing list. Thank you so much to everybody who has already subscribed. Please share to your friends, family, colleagues and anyone else you can! Thank you to Dmitry Shishkin for his lovely tweet below — please keep the positive comments coming!
This week expect recommendations, a story about the Quarter’s Rooftop Farm, and an interview with Xavier Wiggins who does amazing work with the Dons Local Action Group (check out their website).
We’re also running a new series called ‘photo of the week’ where you, the readers, send in your best picture of Wimbledon. Get creative. Have fun. Ping me your photos at zak@thewimble.com.
Snippets of the week 🗞
💧 Wateraid and Wimbledon Foundation unveil new mosaic — the image, made entirely from tennis nets, rackets and balls, depicts a young Madagascan boy and his mother enjoying clean water. WaterAid and the Wimbledon foundation worked on providing the clean water to the Madagascan community. See the mosaic at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
📚 New children’s book set in Wimbledon to be released this month — Anthea and Wendy Turner’s second instalment in their Underneath the Underground series, Raining Strawberries at Wimbledon, follows King Charles and Queen Camilla as they head off to Wimbledon to watch Princess Kate and Prince William face-off against Andy Murray and Heather Watson, but things do not go to plan. Pre-order here.
Property of the week 🏡
This house reminds me of Daniel Craig’s property in Layer Cake. I mean that in a good way, mind you. I think it’s something about the minimalistic design — all those sharp corners and sleek metal frames. The property could be yours for a cool £1,000,000. I like this house. It’s the sort of place I could imagine myself drinking a martini in, even though I don’t like martinis. Check it out on Rightmove.
The Wimble’s to do list 🎯
🎭 Perceptions at New Wimbledon Theatre — this month is the New Wimbledon Theatre’s micro-fringe, with 18 different shows to see. Perceptions examines the intricacies of human perception and what it means to be neurodivergent in the 21st century. Catch it today by grabbing your tickets here.
Where: New Wimbledon Theatre
When: Thursday 13th June, 7:45pm
🍷 Mumdays wine tasting — Friarwood Wines are hosting another ‘Mumdays’ wine tasting next week. Parents can bring prams to learn about four different wines. There will be small plate offerings too. The website has more information.
Where: Friarwood Wines, Wimbledon Village
When: Monday 17th June, 1:30pm-3:00pm
📚 Ask the experts at the Wimbledon Museum — is there a question about Wimbledon’s local history that you’ve always wanted to know? Is Google not quite cutting it? Head over to the Wimbledon Museum tomorrow to ask the experts — Michael Norman Smith and Sheila Dunham — those burning questions.
Where: Wimbledon Museum
When: Friday 14th June, 2:30pm-5:00pm
🥕 Wimbledon Village Farmers’ Market — nothing quite says Sunday like a farmer’s market. Fresh produce. Families idly walking by and pointing at vegetables. Nothing wrapped in hideous plastic. If you want to take it easy this Sunday, head over.
Where: Village High Street
When: Sunday 16th June, 10:00am- 3pm
Q&A: “We’re not just giving food, we’re giving people dignity, hope and care” 🎗
Xavier Wiggins is the co-founder of Dons Local Action Group: a network of volunteers helping those who have fallen below the poverty line in Merton, Kingston and Wandsworth. Having distributed food for six million meals, supplied 3,500 laptops and thousands of pieces of furniture, Dons Local Action group is doing a remarkable job at tackling poverty.
Z: How did Dons Local Action Group Start?
X: We were just a group of volunteers leafleting to raise money for completing the stadium at Plough Lane. During that time we spoke about using the grounds for more than the three o’clock game on a Saturday — to use it for a positive purpose. After raising the biggest bond in football history, Covid hit. I messaged the WhatsApp chat with everyone in it and said, “Right, time for us to walk the walk. We talked about community. It’s time to do something.”
Z: How does the charity work? How do you get food to those who need it?
X: We do food differently to other organisations. We stand outside of shops with humans and we say “please” and “thank you”. We tell people what we need and those who can help will buy a couple of extra items with their shop. After that, we take it back to the food hub and distribute either through social services or we take it in bulk to our partners — food banks, homeless charities, women’s refuges.
Z: I saw that you’ve also been able to supply laptops to children who need them.
X: Yes, so the big stats are that we’ve distributed food for six million meals, that we’ve provided 3,500 laptops and thousands of items of furniture.
Z: What has the community engagement been like?
X: Over the past four years, we’ve had 3,000 volunteers. That’s anything from standing outside of a shop, driving, marketing, writing or research. We’re quite visible in the community and we have a lot of interaction. It feels like the community owns us, that we’re intertwined. We’re outside the shops seven days a week. We’re always there. But we need more volunteers. Last year we distributed 30% more food than the previous year, 300% more furniture and 50% more laptops.
Z: For those reading, what is it you need most right now?
X: We do lots of fundraising events so people could get involved in that. They could do the sleepout, the cycle ride or come to our gala night. But what we really need is drivers. Urgently.
Z: I think we often spend so much time online seeing hundreds of important fundraisers that we forget to step outside and help our neighbours.
X: If you’re standing outside a shop this afternoon at 3pm collecting food, it could be in someone’s cupboard by 5pm. We must never forget that there are people a few hundred yards from our front doors who haven’t got any money in their wallet and nothing in their cupboards. They don’t know how they’ll feed their family of four tomorrow. And that’s why we’re here: to supply emergency support.
Mushrooms, honey cake, and gin cocktails: An evening on the Quarter’s Rooftop Farm 🍯
I don’t care what John Stuart Mill said about ‘lower pleasures’ — if food and drink is a lower pleasure then call me a swine. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a sucker when it comes to culinary events.
This week I spent an evening at the Wimbledon Quarter’s Rooftop Farm where food and drink took main stage. The Rooftop Farm is a redesigned urban space that strives to create local and sustainable produce. From micro-greens to mushrooms, tomatoes to honey, the Rooftop Farm is a sustainable garden in the heart of Wimbledon.
The event:
The evening begins with Will, the Rooftop’s resident mushroom farmer, giving us a tour of his mushroom farm. The mushrooms, he explains, are grown using recycled coffee grounds supplied by the various shops in the Quarter.
Any lurking fears that the weather might not hold out for the event is quashed once we gather on the sunlit Rooftop patio. Drinks are provided by the Wimbledon Brewery — a delicious (and dangerous) gin and honey cocktail is served as an aperitif. Will introduces the first speaker, Barnaby, who is the Rooftop’s beekeeper. Barnaby isn’t the first beekeeper I’ve met — weird thing to say, I know — but he’s certainly the calmest. I don’t think beekeepers realise how interesting beekeeping is to the rest of us. People ask Barnaby questions about the yield of honey and he shows us a lattice structure that the bees have made themselves. We’re invited to taste the various pots of honey (the pots are named after South London locations). They’re so popular, in fact, that I don’t get a chance to taste it. By the time I arrive at the front of the table it is just a splatter of crushed, crystallised compostable forks beside an empty pot labelled ‘Fulham’.
Next up is Laura from Lulu’s Patties, who uses the Rooftop’s mushrooms in her recipes. Based in Hammersmith, Laura has had a meteoric rise in the past two years. In 2023 she was made a finalist in the National Bakery Carribean Food Awards. It’s little surprise that she’s done so well. Her patties sit in neat rows and I watch one or two of the attendees eyeing them up before she’s finished speaking. Her flavours are incredibly well balanced and the homemade sauces are just as well-crafted as the patties themselves.
Vanessa Marx from the Bingham’s Riverhouse Restaurant then gives us a masterclass in mushrooms. From one tiny portable stove, Vanessa produces dozens of mushroom crostini as well as these ingenious rosemary skewers. A laugh comes from the crowd when Vanessa, who is originally from South Africa, recounts the accent barriers that faced her upon arriving in the UK — chiefly, her pronunciation of ‘ice’ that led others to think she was saying something far cruder.
Lupo Bros — who have a stall in the Quarter — supply a honey cake made with the honey from the Rooftop. Everyone, myself included, leaves happy, satiated, and staggering off home with a tote bag and a pot of Barnaby’s honey. I’m sure Mill would have found the whole thing beneath him, but then Mill never knew how to have fun.
Here’s to hoping the Rooftop have another event lined up. Keep an eye out for the Rooftop’s upcoming projects and their produce which has already gone on sale — check out their Instagram here.
Question time with The Wimble 🔍
Last week’s answer: Laetitia the Roman goddess of gaiety.
Q: Which famous poet — author of Over the Brazier — hailed from Wimbledon? No cheating. The answer will be posted in next week’s newsletter. Check out our instagram and comment your answers below.
You’re up to date 👋
Thanks for reading this week, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again to everyone who has subscribed and shared — please keep it up. As ever, drop me an email at zak@thewimble.com with any tips, leads, or stories you want told. We’ll also be introducing longer features as separate posts in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for them. Don’t forget to send me your photo of the week so I can feature the winner in next week’s edition! In the meantime, have a great week!