You will sometimes hear someone say "I've got an allotment in my garden", or something similar. Eh????? You're right. If it's in your garden, it's either vegetable patch or a kitchen garden, depending on the size!
The clue is in the name - an allotment is something which is allotted to you. What do you mean, "allotted to you"? A couple of hundred years ago, the wealthy farmers in the countryside decided that they were fed up with the old, inefficient, medieval system of land use, with strip fields all over the place and common land which ordinary people could graze a cow or a few geese on, woodlands they could keep pigs in, and the land shared out so that everybody got a bit of the good and a bit of the bad. That was just far too old-fashioned.
Of course, back then, only rich people had the vote. So when the farmers and landowners passed laws saying they were going to carve up the countryside between them and leave nothing for the poorer people, there wasn't much the smallholder or cottager, who'd relied on those commons and woodlands, could do. And as for their single strip of land, on which they grew vegetables and a bit of corn - well, it was inconveniently in the middle of where a rich farmer wanted his field. "Here" said the farmers "Here's a soggy, infertile bit in an inconvenient place which we don't want, we'll allot that to you poorer people - so you still have your land, OK?" And thus allotments were born.
Most allotments are now in towns, of course. Sometimes the towns just grew round the country allotments. In other cases, as towns grew, the local authorities set aside land especially for allotments. During the First World War, ordinary people went much hungrier than they did in the Second, with no proper rationing, so allotments were set up to help them grow food to replace the stuff that which, before the war, had come in from abroad.
Allotments are now part of British culture, with many odd traditions of their own. That doesn't mean they're safe. Despite rocketing demand in the past few years, local authorities still sometimes cast greedy eyes on what they see as prime building land. Allotments have their roots in our rural past, and are a legacy from a time when the ordinary man or woman was powerless in the face of callous politicians. Take note!
Here (click link here) is just one story of allotments under threat, this one in Wigan. Google 'allotments under threat' for more worrying stories.
The clue is in the name - an allotment is something which is allotted to you. What do you mean, "allotted to you"? A couple of hundred years ago, the wealthy farmers in the countryside decided that they were fed up with the old, inefficient, medieval system of land use, with strip fields all over the place and common land which ordinary people could graze a cow or a few geese on, woodlands they could keep pigs in, and the land shared out so that everybody got a bit of the good and a bit of the bad. That was just far too old-fashioned.
Of course, back then, only rich people had the vote. So when the farmers and landowners passed laws saying they were going to carve up the countryside between them and leave nothing for the poorer people, there wasn't much the smallholder or cottager, who'd relied on those commons and woodlands, could do. And as for their single strip of land, on which they grew vegetables and a bit of corn - well, it was inconveniently in the middle of where a rich farmer wanted his field. "Here" said the farmers "Here's a soggy, infertile bit in an inconvenient place which we don't want, we'll allot that to you poorer people - so you still have your land, OK?" And thus allotments were born.
Most allotments are now in towns, of course. Sometimes the towns just grew round the country allotments. In other cases, as towns grew, the local authorities set aside land especially for allotments. During the First World War, ordinary people went much hungrier than they did in the Second, with no proper rationing, so allotments were set up to help them grow food to replace the stuff that which, before the war, had come in from abroad.
Allotments are now part of British culture, with many odd traditions of their own. That doesn't mean they're safe. Despite rocketing demand in the past few years, local authorities still sometimes cast greedy eyes on what they see as prime building land. Allotments have their roots in our rural past, and are a legacy from a time when the ordinary man or woman was powerless in the face of callous politicians. Take note!
Here (click link here) is just one story of allotments under threat, this one in Wigan. Google 'allotments under threat' for more worrying stories.
