The Clerkenwell Pollinator Path is supporting people to use balconies, tree-pits, playgrounds, doorsteps, office rooftops, private gardens and public parks to create and connect effective, attractive pollinator pantries and habitats.
By Sarah Wood
Pollinators are responsible for 1 in 3 mouthfuls of the food we eat and are essential to natural ecosystems. You may know that many of them are under threat, in decline, and need our help. But did you know that honeybees accounted for 26% of all flower-visiting insects recorded by ecologists in Clerkenwell during 2025, even though the UK has over 250 bee species?
This year, following ecologists’ recommendations, local volunteers are planting flowers and creating habitats to support a far greater diversity of viable pollinating insects, including the chocolate mining bee, the holly blue butterfly and the footballer hoverfly. The aim is a pollinator pitstop every 100m so that smaller bees with shorter flight ranges can find the food and shelter they need to survive. We’ve published The Clerkenwell Pollinator Toolkit to help everyone in EC1 create and care for a tapestry of pollinator-friendly patches across the neighbourhood. The toolkit provides a step by step guide to supporting bees, butterflies, hoverflies, moths and beetles, along with top tips from local legends, pollinator plant lists and trusted suppliers. The digital toolkit is free to download on the Friends of St John’s Garden website here.
Over spring and summer, local volunteers are leading sowing and growing workshops, habitat workshops (where you can make your own bee hotels, puddling stations and hoverfly lagoons!), and Citizen Science sessions, showing people how to use online apps and tools to identify and record pollinators. We’re installing bee hotels for cavity-nesting bees and bee banks for ground-nesting bees across the neighbourhood – EC1 readers may have seen them popping up in local green spaces already! These wild bees are gentle, solitary insects that don’t sting and are often much smaller than farmed honeybees.
There is very little published research on the nesting and foraging habitats of solitary bees, so we’re excited to be working with entomologists from Queen Mary University London to trial new types of bee hotels and measure their effectiveness in an urban setting. At street level, we’re planting pollinator tree pits along pavements in partnership with Islington in Bloom and high above our heads, the children of COLPAI Primary School are creating a Pollinator Garden in the Sky, making the most of their sunny rooftop! If you’d like to see more bees and butterflies on your street and want to find out how to get involved, you can download the toolkit here or reach out to the group on Instagram @clerkenwellpollinatorpath. We’re all volunteers, local people living and working in Clerkenwell, passionate about bringing beauty and biodiversity to local streets and parks, connecting pollinators to natural resources and connecting people to nature and each other. Most important of all? This is a path and we want to enjoy the journey 🙂
The One Pot Pollinator Paradise Workshop will be held at The Goldsmiths Centre on Britton Street on Monday, 27th April, from 12 to 2pm. This event is being led by Alison Benjamin, renowned bee expert and author of The Good Bee: A Celebration of Bees and How to Save Them. Alison’s specialism is pollinator gardening on rooftops and balconies, which is especially relevant in EC1, where 90% of Clerkenwell residents live in flats, some with balconies, rooftops or communal courtyards, making container gardening a simple, enjoyable and practical way to create a much-needed pollinator pitstop. If you’d like to attend, RSVP by messaging @clerkenwellpollinatorpath on Instagram or emailing [email protected] to book your place.
