Allotments 4 All
General => The Shed => Topic started by: ACE on November 07, 2018, 15:01:53
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I have just heard on the telly that before the First world war allotments were considered a hobby for rich eccentrics, Not much changed there then. (apart from he rich bit).
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Gosh Ace I didn't think that a fine upstanding person like you could ever be an "Eccentric".
Bill
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Ha ha!
Whatever made them think that? as they were for the poor, since their common land was enclosed by wealthy landowners, and provision of plots was encouraged to right this wrong. It was eventually made into law in 1908, so obviously poor people still needed them.
https://www.learningwithexperts.com/gardening/blog/the-history-of-allotments
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Ha ha!
Whatever made them think that? as they were for the poor, since their common land was enclosed by wealthy landowners, and provision of plots was encouraged to right this wrong. It was eventually made into law in 1908, so obviously poor people still needed them.
https://www.learningwithexperts.com/gardening/blog/the-history-of-allotments
Really interesting link. Thank you.
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When I see the word 'blog' in the link, I automatically think, one mans point of view, but I read it anyway. Perhaps the reference on the telly (Britains Great War) with Jeremy Paxman was about the city garden type allotments owned by the richer middle classes. The link and the telly info must have been researched, the link to supposedly educate and the tv to entertain so somewhere in the middle the truth lies.
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NSALG's take on it
'the (allotment) system we recognise today has its roots in the Nineteenth Century, when land was given over to the labouring poor for the provision of food growing. This measure was desperately needed thanks to the rapid industrialisation of the country and the lack of a welfare state.'
https://www.nsalg.org.uk/allotment-info/brief-history-of-allotments/
:wave:
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Strangely I've never, ever, thought of those 'pleasure gardens' as allotments, as they obviously weren't for growing food ;)
I suppose if there is enough space to grow some flowers on the ever-diminishing in size, modern allotment, then we then have a cross between the 2 types :happy7:
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I have noticed over the years that there are a lot of flowers on allotments. I expect the 'the little boxes on the hillside' do not have the room to grow flowers when parking is at a premium. I expect these are the modern allotmenteers. Early 50s council houses had huge gardens, Flowers at the front and veg in the back, even a prefab had enough room to grow your own. The reference in the link to the old boy in a flat cap is right I am surrounded by a mummy with a tummy plus rugrats, a couple of brown bread and sandal types, even some husband and wife teams, they grow everything, the old boys are in short supply and we grow veg, my garden at home is for the flowers.
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I have noticed over the years that there are a lot of flowers on allotments.
It was flowers that took me into Allotment Growing around the mid 1980's!
I was a member of the local Chrysanthemum & Dahlia society and did quite a bit of exhibiting and to get any success in this is you needed to grow hundreds of plants. In my prime I would have around 150-200 plants growing e.g. Chrysants,Dahlias & Gladioli and of course there were the vegetables.
Below are some pictures showing the sort of space they took up!
*Sorry for the quality of the photos...... cameras were not as good then as they are today!