Page 62 - ALG Issue 2 2019

Southern
Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Hampshire
Welcome to our new members...
Melksham Town Council Royal Jersey Agricultural &
Horticultural Society Alderton Allotment Association
7 Individual Members
REPRESENTATIVE
Mrs Jenny Crawford
0845 013 0335 southernregionrep@gmail.com
MENTOR
Paul Neary
South East
0845 313 8422 pneary.nas@gmail.com
Mock Mayor opens shed
Old Shed
Our allotment site of 42 actively managed plots in Cirencester is privately owned by St John’s Hospital Charity, which is primarily an Alms House Charity. The site is situated on Barton Lane in Cirencester and, not surprisingly, is known as Barton Lane Allotments.
We have a small fleet of mowers and other equipment that is kept in a communal shed. In 2017 it became apparent that the shed was bursting at the seams, and becoming decidedly rickety, so a fundraising appeal went out to plotholders. An amazing and generous response raised over £1,000 and this, added to a £500 donation from our landlord, enabled us to purchase a brand new and much larger shed.
Coincidently BBC Radio Gloucester presenter, Mark Cummings, was awarded the ceremonial title of Mock Mayor of Barton. Barton is a suburb of Gloucester City and the ‘election’ of a
The Mock Mayor of Barton cutting the ribbon to officially open a new shed on Barton Lane Allotments
Mock Mayor comes from the time of King Charles II’s return to the throne after the Civil War and the siege of Gloucester in the 1660s. The monarch punished Gloucester for supporting Parliament in the war by ordering it to tear down its walls and make the civic boundaries much smaller, meaning the large area of Barton no longer had a mayor. But in response, the people of Barton elected a Mock Mayor to poke fun at Gloucester and this event continued for hundreds of years before disappearing and then being revived recently.
An amazing and generous response raised over £1,000 and this, added to a £500 donation from our landlord, enabled us to purchase a brand new and much larger shed
Mock Mayor Mark decided to spend the year visiting as many sites in Gloucestershire with Barton in
its name to promote Barton and Gloucester, with the primary object of raising contributions for the renovation of a derelict piece of land on a city farm in Gloucester. He was approached by one of our own allotmenteers with the idea
of performing an official opening ceremony for our shed. How could he resist such an invitation?
Sure enough he accepted and, bedecked in his ceremonial robes and wearing his official chain of office, joined us for a barbeque lunch before cutting the ribbon and officially opening our new shed.
After the ceremony he took a two- minute tour around the shed and inspected our fleet. He took great interest in hearing about the time capsule we buried under the shed, before visiting some of our plots and admiring the variety of produce, then jetting off to his next official engagement.
Ken Wallington, Individual member and Allotment Manager
New Shed
62 Allotment and Leisure Gardener