St Nicks - Centre for nature and green living

St Nicks is the green heart of York: a centre for nature and green living, with an ambitious vision for York. The charity started as ‘Friends of St Nicholas Fields’ in the 1990s by transforming a former landfill site into a thriving Local Nature Reserve. We continue to manage it, with the help of many great volunteers, for the benefit of both wildlife and our visitors. The name of the site and the secular charity comes from the middle ages when the area was owned and managed by St Nicholas hospital and church. Please see the History pages for more details.

We are based at St Nicks Environment Centre which combines many green features. From this base, we run projects, events and services which help to make York more sustainable. The Centre is available for hire for meetings, seminars and other events. We hope you will visit us soon.

St Nicks is registered as ‘Friends of St Nicholas Fields’, charity no.1153739. We are partially funded by City of York Council and partly by grants from other sources whose support is gratefully received and acknowledged on this page. The rest of our income comes from membership, donations, fundraising events and other activities.

•  We are fully committed to making sure that our services, special places and the support we offer are as welcoming, inclusive and accessible as possible.  
• We want St Nicks to reflect a diverse society where we learn from each other and build a healthy respect for each other, both so that we can thrive together today and so that we can live together as sustainably as possible in the future. 
• We will strive to ensure that people of all backgrounds and characteristics are able to fully gain from and contribute to St Nicks, and we commit to listening to everyone in our community to make sure that this is the case, identifying and addressing issues as they arise.