View 7 Images

I am surrounded by goats. One has its front hooves resting on my belly as it looks longingly up at a piece of shrubbery in my left hand. Two more are playfully butting heads in the straw.

Anyone would think I was out somewhere in the countryside, in the picturesque greenery of Saddleworth or one of Greater Manchester’s suburban country parks.

But I’m not. I’m in Failsworth.

Unassumingly tucked behind a plastic factory, in the heavily built-up neighbourhood on the border of Manchester and Oldham , there is a truly magical secret garden. Northern Lily is a community orchard and green space that somehow packs in everything city-dwellers never knew they needed: from rows of fruit trees ready for the picking to three cheeky therapy goats called Coconut, Rusty and Bramble.

See Full Page