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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren pierces the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

It is maybe the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. But one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines sagging with plump mauve grapes on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He has pulled together a loose collective of growers who make vintage from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

So far, the grower's allotment is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre area and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a initiative reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including urban centers in Japan, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help cities stay greener and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from construction by establishing long-term, productive farming plots within urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the soils the plants thrive in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, local spirit, landscape and history of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the vines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. Should the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he comments, as he cleans damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned European varieties – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Across the City

The other members of the collective are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I adore the smell of these vines. The scent is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the vines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting bunches of dusty purple Rondo grapes from lines of plants slung across the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually make quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of making vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, the various wild yeasts are released from the skins into the juice," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "That's how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole problem encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a fence on