Page 21 - ALG Issue 3 2018

Allotment Centenaries
Many thanks to all of you who have sent in articles for this feature.
Please continue to send your stories. Perhaps you will be inspired by the accompanying article from Lesley Acton, to start researching the history of your site?
Researching your allotment site
So, you’ve decided to research the history of your allotment site. As with any research project, the first question is where do I start? One good starting point is your own membership and your own archive. Members, particularly those who seem to have been around forever, are often a fantastic oral resource. If you haven’t already done so, go and ask them when they came to the site, what it was like then, who else had a plot, and importantly, who managed the site? If it was managed by your local council, then you know they will hold some sort of records, which are also
a good starting point. Have a look in your club room, turn out
the bags and crates and empty the drawers that hold all those documents, which you needed to keep but never thought would be of any use. Suddenly, all that clutter becomes a treasure trove worth its weight in compost!
Ordnance survey maps are sometimes used in an attempt to establish the date a site was founded - but beware, early OS maps were inconsistent in recording allotments; sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. The fact that a site was not recorded does not mean it did not exist (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). Moreover, if your site was established in an area that was subject to extensive development, it could have moved. Early on, councils often used spare land for temporary allotments until such time as the land was needed for something else, in which case the site might have been relocated and possibly renamed. Another point to bear in mind when searching early maps is the date of the survey and the date the map was printed, which can often be several years apart. Maps are best used as corroborative rather than definitive documents when it comes to dating a site.
So next stage, you take a trip down to your local library or archive and begin your search. Your very best resource there is the staff; they can often point you in the right direction and will know how to begin such work if it’s something you are not used to doing. Council minutes can vary in how much data you can glean from any one report, but put together, they can help to begin building a story. Local newspapers are another good resource and will help supplement sketchy council minutes, especially if there was anything going on, such as an attempted sell-off that might not be recorded in meeting minutes. Exactly where you look when perusing old council records depends on who managed allotments. While many councils had specifically designated allotment committees, many did not, which might mean you need to look at other committee reports to find out about your site. One such example is Swindon’s allotments. Between 1901 and 1907, allotments were the responsibility of the Farm and Allotments Committee. In 1907, management was turned over to the Sewage Works Committee. From 1935–50 the
Letter re Forest Farm allotments showing details of membership numbers
assume such records don’t exist. In Redbridge, site leases have been the responsibility of the Borough Land Officer, the Director
of Administration and Legal Services, the Parks Manager, and the Recreation and Amenities Committee. Of course, none of this makes things easy, but it does make it incredibly exciting when you finally find something!
Parks, Markets and Cemeteries Committee
were in charge of allotments, and in 1963
it was the Arts and Recreation Committee.
Who had responsibility for allotments between
1950 and 1963 is not documented. If your
council minutes have not been digitised and/
or indexed, then there is little alternative other
than to trawl through the pages until you spot
your keyword, ‘Allotment.’ Dividing up this task is the best way to make it bearable! Many archives allow the use of cameras, and where allowed I suggest you photograph your finds. It will save a return trip if you need to revisit a document, which I inevitably found myself doing, sometimes repeatedly.
Site leases are another useful source of data, but once again, if you are trawling through council records and don’t find information where you think it should be, then look somewhere else, rather than
How much data you find is often an indication of how well a council managed its allotments. The 1969 Parliamentary Inquiry into Allotments (usually referred to as the Thorpe Report) described how some allotments had equal status with other council committees and performed well, but others were ‘a travesty of their original purpose,’ and local authorities could not be trusted to administer
them properly! Understating a council’s attitude to its allotments may well be a good starting point for research. Badly managed sites usually go along with scant records.
If your site is located near a railway, then you could look to railway records, which might help. In the 1920s, there were 100,000 railway allotments in England and Wales. Patches of railway land often found use as allotments because their location, shape or size were unsuitable for other purposes.
How much data you find is often an indication of how well a council managed its allotments
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