Page 70 - ALG Issue 2 2021

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If we move back even further in time, we find that in the 17th and 18th centuries the area of the current allotment site formed part of what was known as the Cradfords estate. This estate had passed into the Gretton family by 1768; they retained the freehold until well into the 19th century and were involved in urbanising the area in the 1820s and 1830s.
Open fields, ropemaking, residential housing, bombing, prefabs, urban dereliction and now allotments: it is curious to reflect that so much could have happened to so small a piece
of land in Bethnal Green. And the Association itself is far from static; there have been significant changes in the membership which reflect the altered demographics of the site’s catchment area, and many challenges in sustaining a self-run organisation over the past 40 years have been overcome. Changing trends in the way people garden are also much in evidence, with declining use of chemicals, some members using no-dig techniques and others growing vegetables from the Middle East and
Rural Bethnal Green circa 1700; the ‘Drift Way’ running west–east is now the Roman Road; the allotment site occupies an uncertain position in Cradfords Land. Source: J. Gasgoyne, Map of Stepney Parish (London, 1703)
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70 Allotment and Leisure Gardener
India that would have mystified the founders. Prospect Walk Allotments Association is now a very different organisation to the one that was set up in 1979–80. Such change is inevitable and will doubtless continue, but it is surely a cause of celebration that the site remains a place where allotments are thriving.
Andrew Lewis, Secretary, Prospect Walk Allotments Association
Grateful thanks to the staff of both the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives for their assistance with research.
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