london diary

 Luke built his house here - only buying a couple of small lengths of timber, some large steel studding and some tarpaulin.

 Many of the residents create artistic works around their homes and across the site

 although some of the areas around the homes were a bit of a mess - but some of the junk may get reclaimed

 as the two car tyres used here as a table

 

 'Keep the Forest Tidy'. Luke says there are too many paths and he wants to get people to agree to take some out of use

 Doubtless there will be discussions, and like other things, the community will reach a consensus...

 The eco-village is on ancient woodland below the former Shoreditch College site, part of the grounds of a huge private house
which from the 1870s to 1906 housed the Royal Indian Engineering College. It became a private residence again and was
acquired in 1938 by the London County Council as an emergency HQ for the coming war. They set up an emergency teacher -training
college in it in 1946, and when that closed, Shoreditch Training College moved out of Hoxton to here, becoming a part of
Brunel University in 1980. Courses there ended in 2004 and they sold the site for £46.6m to Oracle Homes in 2007.

Oracle went bust, and another company now owns the site. They have planning permission for development on
the top of the hill but this woodland would remain as a private domain for the owners of the luxury homes there.