Deen City Farm — Attraction in London

This is a fantastic little city farm. I read some bad reviews that are totally unjustified and had to write about our numerous experiences. As a visitor - it is a small city farm, exactly as it says, the staff are friendly and helpful, the animals well taken care of, great facilities with a cafe and clear hand washing areas. There is a small animals handling area (depends on times), and the bigger animals in the field that you are welcomed to pet and feed. There is a small but decent sized playground, pony rides for age 2+ and actual lead rides and horse rides for older riders. The ponies are friendly and at no time would you feel uncomfortable with your kids seeing or handling any of the animals. As a birthday guest our kids had the best time and the whole thing runs effortlessly. So much so in fact that as a result we hosted our son’s 4th birthday there and then again our second son’s 3rd birthday there. Hosting these birthday parties was a wonderful experience for us and our guests and these were before DCF even did the party bags. You start with an area to meet at and quickly get taken to the small animals petting area where you have this exclusive use. The kids love this and meet rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, ferrets, and all sorts of cute fluffy things. This doesn’t last too long and just as the kids start losing interest they get whisked off to the large animals. You are given lots of feed for the animals and yes it always feels as it is not enough as the kids love feeding animals and also drop a fair few but actually there is a LOT of feed to go around. Just as they finish feeding them you cruise them across to wash their hands before lunch and cake which is simple kid food but good quality sandwiches with healthy carrots and cucumbers and much loved sweeter things. They provide all cutlery and plates. We always brought along our own sharp knife to cut our cakes as we are particular about this but they are so friendly that I’m sure they’d provide one if you ask. There is juice and water and you have your own room. You can bring your own cake and they don’t force you to purchase theirs which is a real set apart from some other London venues. Then a short stint into the playground and the optional (but I would 100% recommend) pony rides that again are for your birthday group only. These are run smoothly and in a friendly format by their staff and a chance for the kids to ride in front of their friends as they pass them in the final stretch and a great spot for photos. This is where we’ve done party bags and farewells as some guests choose to stay on in the playground and others leave. Overall smooth, brilliantly transitioning, and unstressful events. Greta job team running this place and doing it with smiles on...

I went to Deen City Farm with my granddaughter, but as I looked around I was torn. I’m sure they do wonderful work in showing & teaching children all about farm life and animals, however purely as a “visitor attraction” it was very poor. As you walk through the gates you are hit by lots and lots of signs: DON’T WALK ON THE GRASS: DON’T SIT HERE; NO ENTRY; STAFF ONLY; DON’T PICK THE FLOWERS… Very off putting to adults and young people. I understand that they want to keep visitors & their livestock safe, but it isn’t very welcoming when you are hit by a barrage of signs telling you what you can’t do. There are other ways of doing things, I know as I was head of risk at a London museum, with nearly 1 million visitors a year. Also as I walked around it was very scruffy, OK so it’s a City Farm on a limited budget, but there were simple things that could have been improved. I know the Farm colleagues are probably volunteers and are doing it for their own reasons, but on the day I visited they were all a fairly miserable lot and we were misdirected twice when looking to buy food for the goats. The animals were all in good condition, but it was a few minutes in before we actually saw a farm animal, let alone interact with one. Was I expecting too much, and my granddaughter enjoyed her visit, but she is too young to read the signs which prohibited any fun things. However, I walked away thinking that they need to decide if they really want to be a “visitor attraction”, if so they...

I’ve ridden the lovely Yogi at Deen City farm with a couple of different instructors. One, Jo Henbrey, is a gem who provided encouragement and direction to go through walk, trot and canter after a break from riding. She also used a headset so that I could hear her instructions from across the school. I felt very positive after the class and have booked another with Jo. On the second lesson with a different instructor, Yogi was unwilling to trot despite plenty of encouragement, which was fine (we all have tired days, it was mid afternoon and he seems comfortable being a little lazy). The instructor tried to get me to whip him which I was unwilling to do and she became quite hostile when I expressed that I wasn’t willing to be whipping and repeatedly kicking a horse. I was advised that “perhaps last time he’d just had a rider who got him moving” which was a strange comment that came across as quite dismissive. She also didn’t help with technique beyond a comment of “your stirrups look weird” at which point I had to follow up with a question on what she actually meant. She offered to get on Yogi to “get him moving” but I declined to prevent him from potentially being whipped. Of note is that Deen City have two riders in the school at the same time, which worked in my lesson with Jo as we used half of the school each. There are lots of enthusiastic girls volunteering to look after the horses and ponies, which is nice and they seem to get a lot...