Page 62 - ALG Issue 2 2017

99 years of Royal Crescent Allotments, Merthyr Tyd l
Hywel Mathews from Royal Crescent Allotments has sent in a fascinating history and analysis of the site in Merthyr Tyd l from 1917 to the present day. Reproduced below is Hywel’s introduction. The booklet is also available online at http://www. royalcrescentallotments.co.uk/about-us.
“Our allotment is called the Royal Crescent Allotment Society, located in Merthyr Tyd l, just above Penydarren and Gwaunfarren.
We don’t own it but we think of it as ours. I had been thinking about writing an account of what we are, what we do and how we started and after talking with some former members at an Open Day in 2015, I decided to do something and this booklet is the result.
I had listened to many anecdotes about the allotment in its past, but I needed evidence to support what I had been told. For example, nobody knew exactly when we started. There were few archives of our own to draw on, except for a few les in our hut and these are incomplete. So, my search began with the resources held by the Council, old maps and especially the Council’s minute books that go back to 1905, a good time to start, as it happened. I discovered that by the peak period of the late 1940s, allotments had spread over many of the elds where we are today, from the Clock Field allotments at the rear of the
General Hospital, through Penydarren and up to the Water Works at Pen y Bryn and on to Gellifaelog and Garden City. Ours was a distinct Royal Crescent Allotment by then. It seemed appropriate to include information about allotments in other parts of the County Borough in order to set our growth in a slightly wider context.
What I have written is an account of how we grew since May 1917, which is the rst mention that I found of an allotment in Royal Crescent. I was very pleased and surprised there were some plots there almost a century ago. I have traced our progress from then until now and nished my story with some details about our allotment as it is today.
Had I known when I started this account that it would be our centenary in 2017, I might have waited another year to nish it, but I didn’t, so I haven’t and it celebrates our 99th Birthday instead. This account is primarily
for our allotment members and local people and I hope that they will nd it interesting and enjoyable. Anyone who has a plot in an allotment elsewhere and comes across this booklet may nd that we have something in common.”
The booklet is very comprehensive, with maps, photographs and a useful membership analysis that they have used to support funding applications for their site developments. A signi cant number
of allotments created around the time of WW1 will be reaching their centenaries over the next few years and what better way to celebrate than recording the ups, downs and recent achievements of this enduring pastime.
Royal Crescent Allotments will be celebrating their centenary with an Open Day on
Saturday 3 June, 2017 from 10.30am
to 3pm. There will be a free BBQ, bouncy castle, face painting, birds and snakes. Visit the beehives with our beekeeper, walk the Woodland Walk and look around the plots of the allotment.
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