A £12 million new attraction is the UK’s biggest urban farm – and it opens this weekend

Green-fingered Greater Manchester locals, listen up: a giant farm is opening less than half an hour from Manchester city centre. 

When Northern Roots debuts this weekend, it will be the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park. Spanning 160 acres of urban greenspace in Oldham, the huge £12 million attraction will have a welcome building, forestry skills centre, outdoor amphitheatre, café, shop and play area.

It will offer everything from beekeeping courses to blacksmithing experiences, and will even give locals the chance to grow fibres and create plant dyes to make cloth, reconnecting the city with its textile heritage. 

Northern Roots, which stretches for a mile and a half from Oldham’s Alexandra Park down to Park Bridge Heritage Centre and the River Medlock (and looks out onto the foothills of the Peak District), will also have football and hockey pitches and offer activities like mountain biking, adventure play and graded walking routes.

Courses, outdoor classrooms, a forest school and workspaces will be offered to local school kids once the project is up and running. Plus, we can expect the on-site café to serve up breakfast and lunch dishes like seasonal soup, mezze, tarts, cheese and onion pie, sandwiches, cakes and sweet treats, some of which have been cooked up by local legend Mary-Ellen McTague, the former sous chef under Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck. 

Plans to transform existing community growing and food projects like Growing Hubs, the Green Dividend and Get Oldham Growing into the massive urban greenspace have been in the works for five years. The land now home to Northern Roots was previously home to cotton mills, a coal mine and even a council tip.

Northern Roots opens on Saturday September 19 with The Big Welcome, a free day of family fun. Think stilt walkers and a unicyclist, face painting and free funfair rides. Find out more on the Northern Roots website.

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