An Evening of Celebration at the Islington in Bloom Awards Ceremony

St John’s Garden wins Best Small Park in London, Clerkenwell Pollinator Path wins the Nancy Pattenden Wildlife Award and Clerkenwell wins Best Neighbourhood

Friends of St John’s Garden celebrate the win at Poetry in the Park gathering

Last night was an incredible celebration of the hard work and dedication shown by gardeners, growers and thriving communities across the borough of Islington this year.

The celebration took place at The Charterhouse - a founding partner of the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path - where gardeners in glamorous attire came together from across the borough to take a breath, raise a glass and recognise the incredible collective achievements of 2026.

3 awards are pictured here - free seeds if you can find them in the photo!

We acknowledged that it has been (and remains!) a challenging year, with repeated heatwaves and prolonged drought conditions meaning many of us spent the summer months wrestling with watering cans, watching helplessly as favourite shrubs and flowers battled with the urban-island heat effect. Summer 2026 brought home the realities of climate change and demonstrated the vital role that green spaces play in protecting public health. It also brought home the need to swiftly adapt our city’s green spaces to meet the challenges of a changing climate. But that’s skipping ahead to 2027…

Back to last night’s event, where The Friends of St John’s Garden were absolutely, blooming delighted to pick up the award for Best Small Park in London, alongside our good friends at the fabulous Arlington Square, proving that great parks can come in small packages and a small space can deliver huge positive impact for urban nature and local communities. There were hundreds of entries across the capital and you can read more about the London in Bloom process, categories and criteria here.

The special awards at the end of the ceremony brought some special surprises! The Clerkenwell Pollinator Path was honoured to receive the Nancy Pattenden Wildlife Award in recognition of its work promoting pollinators and boosting biodiversity, working in partnership with ecologists, academics, local residents, charities, businesses and schools across the neighbourhood.

Bee the brand! Sarah, Zoe and Alex collect Best Neighbourhood award

In the final award of the night, Clerkenwell as a whole was awarded Best Neighbourhood (“best ward” in council lingo) for achieving the highest number of entries to Islington in Bloom and wins across categories such as Best Business (Quentin Blake Centre) and Best Hidden Gem (St John’s Museum). This is an achievement we can all be proud of and is a super strong foundation for 2027.

In the words of Sarah, chair of the Friends of St John’s Garden and founding volunteer of the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path: “The Best Neighbourhood award is a brilliant accolade and recognition for the wonderful people of Clerkenwell who pick up litter, pop a plant in a pot, care for their local park, tend to tree pits, troughs, and window boxes, cultivate compost, feed and water leaf cages, build nests, leaf piles, mini ponds, puddling stations and overwintering habitats for bugs, bees and butterflies, forage for seeds, home bake cookies for gatherings, share books, stories, cuttings and plants, design inspiring booklets and flyers, create colourful event flyers, source slate signs from quarries, install bee hotels and bee banks, record pollinator activity and soil temperatures, dip ponds, lead bioblitzes, history walks and pollinator safaris, host unforgettable events and share garden tools, water butts, transplants, instagram posts and horticultural wisdom with the crowd - you all totally ROCK and your actions have a positive impact that stretches far beyond the neighbourhood 🙏💚🙏“

Local community out in full force!

Big thanks to all the Islington In Bloom sponsors and to the Islington Council Parks team, who made last night such a memorable event and support our green spaces through the seasons and for the long haul.

And if you’re wondering what’s next, there’s a new community orchard coming to St John’s Garden this winter, lots more pollinator pitstops to install, bulbs to plant, leaves to shred and ecologist recommendations for 2027 to digest. Check out the calendar here (link) and come along to say hello!