It's time to revisit one of London's great answered questions.
Where is London's most central sheep?
Yesterday I claimed that this was London's most central sheep.
It is not, sorry.
Further information has come to light in the comments and I can confirm that London's most central sheep is not at Vauxhall City Farm, there's a closer one, possibly several, probably.
Please accept my sheepish apology.
My mistake was to assume that any sheep in central London would be on a City Farm and that I knew where all the City Farms were. This was not the case. In particular I assumed that the list of City Farms held by the London City Farms & Community Gardens Association would be comprehensive and thus include the location of London's most central sheep, but it did not. It's an easy mistake to make.
I did try to consider alternative locations before I plumped for Vauxhall City Farm, but obviously I couldn't check everywhere within 1½ miles of Trafalgar Square. I scoured a map for potential sheep-friendly locations. I checked London Zoo in case they had sheep but they don't. I checked the petting zoo at Coram's Fields but it's closed. Alas sheep are tiny creatures so could be holed up anywhere across six square miles, and indeed they were.
The location I missed is Oasis FarmWaterloo, a half-acre strip of former wasteland opposite St Thomas's Hospital. The farm's been there since 2014 offering its natural resources to support the community, a joint venture between Oasis Hub Waterloo and Jamie's Farm. Crucially they describe themselves as an urban farm not a city farm so they're not on the London City Farms & Community Gardens Association shortlist, so I didn't notice. And they appear to have sheep.
Their website's homepage features a photo of a sheep so it's a fair bet they've got one. If you go to Waterloo, which I now have, you'll see they also use a sheep on their promotional materials suggesting it's at the top of their animal hierarchy. But you can't go in and have a look, they don't take walk-ins, only pre-booked groups and very occasional public events, the last of which was cancelled.
Thankfully you can peer in through the railings from Royal Street but it's a half-obscured squinty view, in one case through a cage of chickens. The animal sheds are on the far side and I definitely saw two cute white animals chomping away on the hay, although there might have been more just out of sight. The number of sheep at Oasis Farm Waterloo thus appears to be at least two, suggesting these are London's most central sheep and not those in Vauxhall.
Where is London's most central sheep?
At Oasis Farm Waterloo, less than a mile from Trafalgar Square.
But they might have been goats. Their heads were hidden so it was hard to be 100% sure what kind of cloven animal they were. The Oasis Farm Instagram feed has a number of photos of sheep but also some of goats so it is possible I saw the wrong animal. Their website also says "our farm animals rotate from Jamie's Farm in Wiltshire", suggesting they're not always here, and also that "we usually have a ewe with her lambs", which before lambing season may mean they currently don't. Alas this isn't cut and dried.
Where is London's most central sheep?
Probably at Oasis Farm Waterloo, unless there isn't one here at the moment because there are only goats, in which case at Vauxhall City Farm.
This is my new definitive answer, unless I've missed something you haven't told me about.
I was thus also wasting my time trying to determine London's second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth most central sheep. Once you're uncertain about the first sheep the rest of the list just falls apart. Also I completely missed Battersea Park Children's Zoo and they have fivesheep according to their website, and distance-wise they'd be the third closest flock.
0.8 milesOasis Farm Waterloo: currently at least two animals that might be sheep 1.4 milesVauxhall City Farm: I counted seven sheep 2.2 milesBattersea Park Children's Zoo: seemingly five sheep 2.8 milesSpitalfields City Farm: ten sheep
It turns out I wasted my time going to Spitalfields City Farm because they definitely don't have any of the top ten most central sheep. It also turns out pretty much everything I stated in yesterday's post about the centrality of sheep was incorrect, for which I apologise. Normally when readers kindly point out things I've overlooked I can slightly rewrite it, but in this case the whole thing was so wrong it's essentially unrescuable.
There is nothing important in the big scheme of things about the location of London's most central sheep. However there are lessons here for all of us.
1) Don't state something as fact when you haven't researched it fully. 2) Remember that when you do state something because you believe it's fact, it could be based on incomplete information. 3) If you're not 100% sure about something, best introduce at least some element of doubt. 4) Don't trust everything you read just because somebody you trust presented it as fact.
We all like to think we're right and very often we're not.
We don't always have all the facts to hand, even if we think we do.
This applies just as much to you as to me.
But yesterday it applied very much to me, sorry.
