I’m the Riding Project Manager at Vauxhall City Farm. A majority of my role is spent organising lessons for clients, school groups or RDA riders (riding for the disabled association). When not in the office I’m out on the yard riding horses, teaching and training the riding team as well as teaching the Civil Service riding club on Tuesday evenings.

I grew up in Norfolk and horses have always been my passion and almost my whole life. I’ve grown up riding and competing for a living and Eventing and Showjumping was my favourite sphere in riding.  I  moved to London 4 years ago to experience something different with horses and work and manage riding schools in the city.

The best thing about my job is working with both children and adults who do the riding for the disabled. We have school groups and private riders ride with us and watching them grow as a rider and gain confidence within themselves and build a bond with the staff and horses is always so rewarding for me. We recently took four RDA riders to take part in a completion at Hyde Park Barracks and I was over the moon for one of our long term riders to get placed 1st place.

We have a large amount of people coming through the gates each day at Vauxhall, we have a large amount of schools coming daily to take part in educational based learning on the farm or RDA lessons with the equine team.

We also get a lot of people coming to host birthday parties or even company’s coming for corporate challenges or to use our room hires.

We also have a café on site so we do have a large quantity of those who work or live around the Vauxhall area dropping in to sit in or take away food.

My favourite thing about Vauxhall is that we offer something to everyone. As a charity city  farm we really try our hardest in each department (Education, Farm & Riding ) to host as many activities for both adults and children to take part in. A prime example is Lambeth Country Show when the whole team of staff, volunteers and animals come together to promote the farm and what we’re all about.

A lot of people live near by and don’t know we’re in the heart of Vauxhall, which is a real shame.

The weirdest thing that’s happened to me in Vauxhall was actually during my first interview at Vauxhall City Farm. I was asked to ride one of the horses called Billy, so I’m riding around the outdoor arena showing my level of riding to three members of staff, next thing you know I hear shouting and a army of people in green Vauxhall City Farm T-shirts are chasing after a white alpaca in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. I had never seen anything so mad in my life and knew that I would fit in well at the farm as everyone had such a great sense of humour and was and still are so approachable to be around.