Ramshackle huts
-
-
Thorpe was less than impressed by the recycling ingenuity of plot holders and their eclectic construction of garden sheds from unwanted and reusable bits and pieces. Thorpe: “At this time (1965) the term “allotment site” conjured up in many people’s minds a rather sordid picture of a monotonous grid of rectangular plots, devoted mainly to vegetables and bush fruits, and tended by an older stratum of society, particularly men over forty including many old age pensioners.
Prominent over many sites were assemblages of ramshackle huts, redolent of “do it yourself”. From the corrugated iron roofs of these huts sagging down-spouting carried rainwater into a motley collection of receptacles, long since rejected elsewhere, but again pressed into service here and ranging from antiquated baths to old zinc tanks and rusting oil drums. One in every five of the plots lay uncultivated, with weeds flourishing waist-high in summer, almost reaching the tops of the abandoned bean-poles from which tattered pennants of polythene still fluttered noisily to scare birds from non-existent crops.”
From: Thorpe, H. (1975) The Homely Allotment: from rural dole to urban amenity. Geography, Vol. 60, No.3, pp169-183.
Image location: Oldford Farm, Recreation and Community Services, Box 17/8
