Black Country Allotment Society ~ Susie Parr

'Today's allotment is not just a place to grow vegetables but a socially mediated space, shaped by local and national politics, by immigration, economics, public health and social change.'

We know plenty of people who have had, or have an allotment, but we have never had one ourselves. I think that might be because we have always been fortunate enough to have a plot of our own to tend, but I don't think that prohibits application because there can be much more to allotments than just the growing and the feeding. This is about community too and there's nothing better than spotting a site from afar and imagining the work and camaraderie that is involved.

A recent visit to Launceston Castle and there, from the top, were some of the town's allotments clear to see...


For those who might not have heard of, or know little beyond the existence of this historic allocation of a piece of land for the purposes of growing food, there is much to discover and I knew not-a-lot until a wonderful box arrived in the post.

Susie Parr, who wrote The Story of Swimming, and visited the dovegreyreader tent at Port Eliot to talk about it a few years ago (and of course Mr Susie visited this year)  was commissioned by Multistory to write Black Country Allotment Society, nine essays about the life of the allotment holders (and some beekeepers) all set in the heart of the Black Country's 'striking post-industrial landscape.'

Likewise there might be some of you who don't know exactly where the Black Country is...

Think north and west of Birmingham, think of the Industrial Revolution, think of coal mining...

So, when I was offered a 'box' I really couldn't resist. I always relish the idea of a completely new, and to me unknown, subject flying onto my radar.

Firstly the 'box' is beautifully produced, almost set out like a plot when I opened the lid, and how excited I was about the packet of wild flower seeds too. I love the thought of sowing something and making a connection with this project on our own little plot. Susie Parr's essays are published in a series of small booklets and in a colour range that worked immediate magic, creating another subliminal connection because I had only recently finished a hitchhiker scarf in those very same tones, with some added blue sky for sunny days. Appropriately the wool was Rowan Purelife Organic dyed with natural sustainable plant dyes...

The Allotment Scarf needs a home (I can only wear so many scarves) and I have just thought of someone who loves their 'Lottie,' and I know they have ordered their own Black Country Allotment Society box so I think they might like this. Maggie in Liverpool, the Allotment scarf is on its way to you...maybe you and John could share it (!) as thanks for that wonderful cake you made and carried all the way to London for the Persephone lunch.

Each booklet comes with a centre-fold out of beautiful photographs, covering subjects as diverse as history, allotments through the seasons, allotment people, the allotment society, the food produced and some recipes, the bees (with accompanying DVD) even a booklet about the weeds.

Initially it is the history I have been most interested in. Gardens that surrounded the Roman villas here in Britain fell into disuse with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon invaders who were (probably sensibly) big on food production. Forests were cleared, fields and pastures created and here's a thing, many allotments today are still measured in that ancient Imperial way, in rods, perches and poles.

I had to look it up and then things became really complicated...

"The rod or perch or pole is a unit of length equal to 5¹⁄₂ yards, 16¹⁄₂ feet or ¹⁄₃₂₀ of a statute mile and one-fourth of a surveyor's chain. The rod is useful as a unit of length because whole number multiples of it can equal one acre of square measure. The 'perfect acre' is a rectangular area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet by 66 feet long (660 ft long × 66 ft wide), or 220 yards by 22 yards long (220 yd/ long × 22 yd wide), or 40 rods by 4 rods long. Thus, an acre is 160 square rods. Since the adoption of theinternational yard on 1 July 1959, the rod has been equal to exactly 5.0292 meters...."

Well, complicated to me so I settled for Susie Parr's analogy of the doubles tennis court as the size of the average allotment (our veg patch by comparison maybe the size of a squash court) and its development from the 16th century enclosure of common land previously used by everyone and anyone for grazing livestock and gathering fuel.

Walking on Dartmoor has piqued my interest in the whole notion of Common Land, The Dartmoor Commoners and their grazing rights, and who can do what when. For example, the moor is in a phase of Sheep Clear Days at the moment in order to treat the stock for parasites and mate them (rams are not allowed to graze freely on the moor) before turning them out again. Just a few weeks ago a friend and I found ourselves in the midst of a pony drift (a round-up), unbeknown to us it was the Autumn Stallion Inspection. The work of the moor goes on around me as I walk and so much of it steeped in history and ancient tradition.

The allotment was eventually offered as compensation to avoid starvation, which seems like a paltry gesture though I expect the peasants were grateful, but things were going to get a whole lot worse. Eventually the General Enclosure Act of 1845 (I feel sure that was one of those dates drilled into us at school) forced landowners to make provision for the dispossessed poor, and with it came the expansion of the allotment system, until by 1907 councils were obliged 'to provide allotments in response to demand' and they became a feature of the urban landscape too. 

The present-day figures are quite surprising ... 330,000 plots and a waiting list of 90,000 people and Susie Parr outlines the changing demographics of the allotment population, no longer the domain of the working class man and his shed. In many areas allotments have become the denizen of the middle-classes, as well as community enterprises and a place where women are 'increasingly making their presence felt.' 

The Black Country has had challenges of its own to overcome too, not least areas of thin, under-productive soil and heavy industrial usage, and the history of this area, as outlined by Susie Parr, is fascinating... how housing shortages saw any pocket of land developed, making the presence of any allotments, let alone the 140 sites identified, seem like a triumph of perseverance and common sense. Sandwell alone has 1,575 plots.

The Black Country Allotment Society project, and this lovely box, is a celebration of local ingenuity and innovation (a box has been given to everyone who took part in or features in the project) and Susie Parr has brought it into vivid and vibrant focus with her essays, only one of which I have really covered here. I will back with news of the bees and the weeds, and the sheds...you have to see the sheds.

Here is Alison's...

Mine is a bit minimalist by comparison after its autumn clearance...


So if you happen to be looking for a different and unusual gift for a lottie-lover or gardener near you then you couldn't go wrong with a Black Country Allotment Society box , but tarry ye not. Though there is a hope that the books might appear as a slip-cased set eventually, for now it's the box and I hear they are selling fast.

Meanwhile, are there any allotment fans out there...

I'd love to know what makes it special...

Or do they hold memories for you...