Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration

Collaborative community green spaces

It breathes life into stories, brings scientific discoveries to life, and helps make sense of statistics, yet illustration is an often underrated medium. The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the UK’s only charity for illustration, aims to raise its profile, celebrating the art form, supporting illustrators and empowering people of all ages to tell their stories.

They’re currently restoring an industrial heritage site to create a new national centre for illustration. The site includes 18th and 19th century industrial buildings, which will become exhibition galleries, a learning studio and project space. There are also plans for beautiful and biodiverse green spaces – which we’ll support with a grant for £250,000.

The new grounds and gardens will welcome 100,000 visitors a year.
Over the past 10 years, The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has reached 1.5 million people.
The new site, a former waterworks, is 1.5 acres and has been empty since 1954.

Boosting biodiversity

The welcoming grounds and green spaces, which will be free to use, are being co-designed with local community groups. They will include sensory plants and child-friendly interactive features, as well as supporting the area’s biodiversity with spaces for small animals and bugs, bird and bat boxes, and bee-friendly plants. Information boards throughout the site will explain the importance of biodiversity and tell the story of the area’s history.

Islington, where the new centre is located, has one of the lowest amounts of green space per person of any London borough. The new gardens will help address this, offering the local community somewhere to relax, enjoy and learn about nature. Our funding will help create an outdoor classroom and woodland walk. There will be spaces for play and creativity, as well as fruit and herb beds for gardening and growing produce.