Allotment Sites (revised June 8th 2017)

For further details (if available) on any of these references, please email

Geoff Tann: solsecretary@gmail.com

GAZETTEER

(2008, with revisions)

1 North of Long Leys Road

During 1920-21, the council rented 9.647 acres belonging to Lord Monson with 72 plots laid out. This site at the bend in the road by the bypass bridge may possibly have been in use in 1904; it is not marked as allotments on the OS map revision of that year, but the map shows a path leading from Burton Road to the field. The City Council tenancy probably began in January or February 1921, as the Town clerk was attempting to arrange that allotment holders got immediate possession in late February (LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 189: letter 21/2/1921). In 1925, plotholders were allowed to use a water supply opposite the hospital site (SHAC 17/7/25). The council tenancy was ended in April 1941 after about seven months’ notice (SHAC special meeting 6/9/40).. Linda Abbott’s grandfather Robert Carter had a plot on this site after moving from the Yarborough Crescent site in 1922. (Information from Tony and Linda Abbott).

2 Burton Road

The site east of Burton Road (opposite Burton Cliff House) extended back from the Burton Road frontage, across the sites of Honington Crescent, Thorpe Avenue, Legbourne Close, Oaklands Close, and Trent View Flats. The land was owned by Lord Monson. No allotments were marked on the OS map revision of 1904. The City Council operated the site from 1918-19, initially with 64 plots but 66 plots one year later, and the allotments were labelled on OS maps from 1920. Twenty plots were lost from the Burton Road frontage in 1926, when Lord Monson took back land for house building (SHAC 2/10/24 & 15/3/26). There were complaints that year that the Ministry of Health were operating open air shelters for tuberculosis patients on the site, and the council instructed the Ministry to remove the structures (AHA letter, 26/2/26). The site is recorded at its most extensive on an RAF air photograph of 1948 (CPE UK 2541 fr.3047, 25/3/1948). Advance notice of closure of part of the site in 1950 was announced in July 1946: tenants were to be offered plots on a Long Leys Road site (FED July 1946). In December 1949 the land was required ‘immediately’, but seven or eight plots were being worked in about 1975 (FED Dec 1949 & Sept 1950). John Wheatley has described how part of one plot was eventually bought privately by a house owner for a garden extension. By March 1988 there were two remaining plots; these were both let to the Trent View Tenants Association but were both vacant in 1997. They became the subject of a community initiative in 2005 when residents, the City of Lincoln Council, and Groundwork Lincolnshire drew up a plan funded by the Home Office as part of the Operation Gate-it scheme. This included street furniture as well as a new hedge and an area sown with wild flower seeds (http://caistorthi.org.uk/GWLbrief0511.pdf). Information from John Wheatley.

3 Yarborough Crescent

The allotment site now known by this name lies to the north of Yarborough Crescent. The site has the distinction of being the oldest identified allotments in the city. Former city mayor Donald Nannestad uncovered a reference in the Lincolnshire Chronicle of 21/11/1942 announcing the Yarborough Allotments Society 25th Annual Meeting. The item states: "The allotments were laid out in 1884 and there are several tenants who have been in continuous occupation the whole time". A second item of 5/12/1942 mentioned Mr T. Gunson of 101 Rasen Lane (chairman of Yarborough Allotments Society) being presented with a pipe and a pouch of tobacco to mark his 25 years as chairman of the Society. He was then 70 years old; he had had an allotment at Yarborough Crescent for over 44 years. Unfortunately, the extent and position of the earliest plots are not known. They presumably formed part or all of these recorded blocks:

3a The 1905 OS map revision labelled a field (OS Field 181) which extended from the rear of the southern part of ‘Lincoln Barracks’ to Riseholme Road as allotment gardens. Another block of adjoining fields either side of Yarborough Crescent were allotments, and the positions of internal paths indicate that they pre-dated the construction of the road in 1891 (Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury 27/3/1891; see 3b). In 1918 some plots were let to the Yarborough Allotments Association, and in 1940 to the Above Hill Allotment Association. George Foster has suggested that the tenant of these multiple plots was actually an individual who sub-let the allotments out. Linda Abbott’s grandfather had a plot on the site in 1922, before moving to Long Leys Road. The site is listed in the February 1918 ‘Schedule of lands within the City of Lincoln’ (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 198 1/2/1918). It was held by the Lincoln Finance Co. between 1918 and at least 1940 and let as allotments. Development of parts of the site is recorded from 1950 when the ‘military authorities’ required vacant possession (Fed Dec 1950). Sewers were laid across the site to Yarborough Crescent in 1951 (Fed March 1951). A builder contacted the Council in 1959, wanting to build on all or part of the site, and on land beside Clarence Street (SHAC 26/5/1959). The construction of the Yarborough School complex announced in November 1967 was expected to take 48 allotment plots (SHAC 28/11/67). In March 1988 108 plots remained. The site has a particularly uncertain future; the eastern part of the site has been kept out of allotment use for several years as successive councils consider disposing of more land for residential development.

The BBC Lincolnshire website carried a description by ‘Nola’ in August 2005 of her multiple sightings of an ‘extremely large white cat, with leopard like markings’ which on one occasion was ‘snarling’ at the patio doors of her Yarborough Crescent house which backed onto the allotments (. She and her partner referred to the animal as a ‘snow leopard’. This seems to have been the only reported sighting, and in 2007 an undeterred Nola took up an allotment on a nearby site!

3b Clarence Street B

The Yarborough Road Extension road (now Yarborough Crescent) was completed in 1881 on land given by Mildmay Willson (Lincs Chron 11/8/1899).

Allotments on Ordnance Survey (OS) Plot Nos. 217 and 221 were listed in 1918 in the ‘Schedule of lands within the City of Lincoln’ prepared by the Town Clerk’s Dept for the Lindsey War Agricultural Executive Committee under the ‘Defence of the Realm: Cultivation of Lands Order 1917’. These fields had formed part of a 44 acre block owned by the executors of V. Willson and let to the Yarborough Allotments Association. A further 15 acres to the south and west (OS plots 223, 226, 228) were also used as allotments (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 198 1/2/1918). Of these, OS plot 228 was taken out of allotment use in 1946 and the plotholders wre moved to Long Leys Road (FED July 1946).

The Clarence Street B site is not known ever to have been accessed from Clarence Street. Perhaps the street was constructed shortly after the death of the Duke of Clarence (1892) – after Yarborough Crescent had severed the allotment block – and was expected to be continued northwards. It is unclear when the block of land to the south of Yarborough Crescent was identified with the separate name of Clarence Street B, but it must be no earlier than c.1924. That year, the Clarence Street A site came into use as allotments after the owner of a field north of Sobraon Barracks exchanged it with a field at the end of the cul-de-sac Clarence Street. George Foster has stated that the site was owned by Mr Elam, a market gardener, and later by Mr Pell (Mr Elam’s son-in-law). Mr Foster has passed on another plot holder’s recollection that the field had been a stone quarry. A 7 acre portion of the allotment land south of Yarborough Crescent was to be developed in 1953, with the affected tenants moved to Long Leys Road. This seems to refer to the complete site and the proposal must have been dropped. Since the 1990s, the Clarence Street B site has been an exemplary allotment site, with almost total tenancy and an especially good camaraderie between its plotholders.

4 Burton Ridge

This site was part of rough ground to the north of former quarry workings in 1920, and had possibly been quarried at an earlier date. In 1948 the allotments had not been laid out, but the site is visible on an air photograph of 1957 and 1957 tenancy figures are documented (BKS Air Survey Ltd 1957 air photograph 512358). The photograph shows traces of plots to the south in rough ground.

The 1988 council statistics described the site as 4.707 acres, with 44 plots (some of which were grazed). A similar arrangement is depicted on an allotment plan of June 1991, where odd-numbered plots 1-43 were 22 allotments but the other half was used for grazing or was rough ground. A block of similar size to the south (which may have originally been allotments as well) was marked as grazing land. During the summer of 2001 the City Council proposed that the entire site become grazing land as allotment take-up was poor and the condition of some tenanted plots was unsatisfactory. A campaign was launched by the plot holders, with support from adjoining householders, to retain the allotments. This was covered by the Lincolnshire Echo in July 2001, and the North Lincoln Horticultural Society provided supporting arguments to keep the site. The deciding factor was an influx of potential plot holders and in August 2001 the site was reprieved for a two-year trial period. As of summer 2008, no further intentions for the site had been announced.

5 Long Leys Road

5a The 1920 OS map revision labels a single 4 acre block of allotments opposite the hospital lodge, which were owned by the City Council in 1940. This block remains in use as plots 1-32 of the Long Leys Road A site. Stan Grainger, one of the Long Leys Road allotment holders who has worked a plot in this part of the site for many years, described how his father had rented a plot here from about 1925-6, until the 1940s. Plotholders would bring their families and a picnic basket for tea on Sunday on the plots. Bob Burdon, another allotment holder here in 2007, recorded that his father had had a plot on the site after about 1957. He recalled that there had been a spread of stone and brick across part of the allotment site, probably imported from elsewhere. His description suggested that the rubble had been at the eastern side of the site. The City Council agreed to a request in 1962 for an acre of land from the site for an Adult Training Centre, but provided the site to the north of the one requested (SHAC 13/3/62 & 18/5/62). The Lincoln Federation of Allotments minutes for June 1962 record that their members suggested that other allotment sites be considered instead, but they were in favour of training huts being erected. The Long Leys Road Training Centre remained in use until 2006. In 2008 the buildings remained on the site and the nature of its intended redevelopment or reuse was not known.

5b In March 1920 the council bought 11.601 acres of arable land from George Maddison of 21 Burton Road. This land is plots 33-120 of the Long Leys Road A site and was subject to a right of way to OS fields 87, 89 and 120 along an existing roadway on the southern side of the field (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 189: Indenture 27/3/1920). Council allotment tenants on a Long Leys Road site (probably this field) were polled in 1935 as to their willingness to pay for a mains water supply. Almost all who responded were in favour, and the council agreed to install the taps (SHAC 8/11/35).

In 1983 Mr F. ‘Mac’ McGowan was asked to lead a new horticultural project on this allotment site. ‘Mac’ created a small number of raised beds with brick walls on one allotment (Plot 49), for use by wheelchair users on the scheme for unemployed persons. Mr McGowan trained and motivated a team of between 10 and 40 adults to clear and cultivate 27 plots. Single workers were employed for two days each week for a year, married people had three days a week for the same period. The produce was initially supplied to Age Concern in Park Street, for elderly people, then to other similar outlets, with some surplus being sold to the workers at nominal prices. The project was well-supplied with sheds and greenhouses, and some sheds (including the project’s tool store) remain in use on the site. In 1988 the project was taken under the auspices of the Community Enterprise Programme, and Mr McGowan retired in 1990 shortly before the scheme ended. He was replaced by Mr Manning. Mr McGowan was offered one plot as an allotment, and he chose the one which had held the tool store, and was well-secured with a tall fence of reinforcing steel grid. In 2008 he works this plot most days each week. Good records of the project survive: Mr McGowan holds his diaries for the seven years he supervised it, together with photographs, safety notices and other items associated with it.

Since before 1991, about 38 plots in the western end of Field 88 have been farmed as arable by the neighbouring farmer as there was insufficient demand for plots. Further consolidation of active plots was suggested but uptake of plots increased after 2004.

5c The Long Leys Road B allotment site (plots 1-70 of the present site) is not labelled as allotments on the 1920, 1930 or even 1948 OS map revisions but is visible on 1946 and 1947 air photographs. In 1940 the fields were occupied by the owner G. Maddison and were not allotments. These are probably the waterlogged ‘new’ allotments mentioned in City Council minutes of January 1942, which noted that the open ditches were already in need of cleaning and deepening (SHAC 16/1/42). The central part of the site still suffers from poor drainage; the limited under-drainage was probably installed in the late 1970s. Infrequent cleaning of the open ditches is still a cause for complaint. The heavy rainfall of May-July 2007 produced flooded and waterlogged plots across the site, with potato and other crops lost.

This site was removed from residential designation in the city’s Five Year Local Plan in 1998 after a short period of public consultation. Despite this, during the development of a field to the south of these allotments in c. 2002, a contractor remarked to a plotholder that the estate roads were designed in preparation for continuing across the allotments. This has caused doubts about the future of the site.

A student film crew ‘Dimension Media Ltd’, from the University of Lincoln obtained permission to film on the Long Leys road allotment site in November 2003. ‘Seeded First’, produced by Richard Donaghue, was described as a ‘short light-hearted comedy’ and centred around rivalry between two plot holders associated with a fictitious pumpkin competition in the village of ‘Soulbury’. The film crew was given assistance by plotholders, in particular John Wheatley and Tony Abbott.

At intervals, individuals from the area have made use of the relatively dry and sheltered allotment huts for rough accommodation – although organisations including the Nomad Trust take measures to discourage such residence. During a spell of particularly cold weather in the winter of 2004-5, one man was found dead within the shed he had been using.

5d In 1931 the council resolved to buy land on Long Leys Road for allotments for the unemployed and part time workers from the North District of the city (similar to a simultaneous scheme for the South District, and subject to the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries). Applications from potential plot holders were welcomed, which indicates that these were to be additional allotment plots (SHAC 9/1/31). No further details of these intended plots were found during research for this History. Council records also minute 1939 plans to plough up two unspecified fields in Long Leys Road for the sewage farm manager to cultivate (SHAC 25/9/39). These were to be part of the drive to maximise wartime food production. Neither site has been identified, and while it is possible that the plans were abandoned, either could represent 5c or an unlocated site. This land could represent the seven acres of allotment land designated in the 1959 City Development Plan which was re-designated for residential use – perhaps near Albion Crescent.

6 Saxilby Road

The site is labelled as allotments on an undated (c.1950s) printed OS map. Tony and Linda Abbott have described the site not as allotments but a smallholding owned by the Wrights of Waves Farm, and operated by a Mr Whitehead. This may be the 4 acre area of intended allotments removed from the City Development Plan and transferred to agricultural designation in November 1960.

7 [Beside the West Common]

A small block of land 7a to the south of Long Leys Road was annotated on an OS map as ‘Cottage Gardens’ in 1940. No other information has been found.

The 1940 map marks two adjacent pieces of land opposite Albion Brickworks as allotments owned by the Lincoln Brick Company and let out by their tenants. These were the plots mentioned in the February 1918 ‘Schedule of lands within the City of Lincoln’ prepared by the Town Clerk’s Dept for the Lindsey War Agricultural Executive Committee under the ‘Defence of the Realm: Cultivation of Lands Order 1917’ (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 198 1/2/1918). Sub-dean Leake held a 0.918acre site 7b (OS plot 115), and W. Handley's site 7cwas 2.778 acres (OS plot 116).

8 Smith’s Mill

This unnamed site was included among the Long Leys Road allotment sites on the ‘Schedule of lands within the City of Lincoln’ in February 1918. The site was close to the then derelict mill. George Foster has recalled that the lane past the mill, leading to the nearby Albion brick pits, was called Smith’s Hill Side after the owner of the mill. In 1918 the allotments were rented out by the executors of V. Willson, and in 1940 they were owned by D. Willson Trustees and tenanted by the Above Hill Allotment Association. They are marked on the OS revisions of 1930s, 1940 and 1948, and can be distinguished on air photographs of 1946 and 1947.

9 Clarence Street A

OS Plots 223, 226, were used as allotments in 1918 but were not part of the block that had included the present Yarborough Crescent and Clarence B sites (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 198 1/2/1918).

This early documented use was not known by George Foster when in March 2007 he recalled the origins of this site. He said that the field, owned by a Mr Herd, had previously been grassland so rough that it was used as a playground. There is a suggestion that stone had been quarried from the site by German prisoners of war and used for the construction of the Yarborough Crescent road built in 1891. The 33 plot site was not turned to allotment use until after 1924 when the owner of a site north of Sobraon Barracks exchanged it with a field at the end of Clarence Street. George Foster had his own allotment, Plot 13, on Clarence A site from 1954, and it was considered a very good site. The land was prepared each year by double-digging, and the hedges had to be cut by the allotment tenants. Jack Briggs was chairman of the site’s Association, and became a friend of George when he started cultivating a plot. George had a greenhouse but had no interest in keeping poultry on his plot. He used to grow an 18ft row of tomatoes each year, and once harvested about 2.5cwt. As a youngster on a site where the majority were much older, the older allotment holders used to gather on a seat on George’s plot to give him advice, and this created a close bond with others on the site. With a Mr Hardy, George grew large chrysanthemums, and once won 3^rd prize at the Lincolnshire Show. He worked on his plot every day, and other plotholders included a postman and a retired postman. The Clarence Street A Allotment Society asked for a water supply to be fitted, and a tap was installed on the secretary’s plot. Later, two other taps and tanks were provided. No children or dogs were permitted on the site. The path over the site was spread with ash, and was hoed each week to keep free of weeds. Plotholders would work to maintain the plots of ill neighbours.

This site is visible on an air photograph of 1957 (BKS Air Survey Ltd 1957 air photograph 512356). The concrete allotment store was built by the North Lincoln Horticultural Society in June 1954, with much help from Bill Carr, a builder who served on the committee. The store used to be open solely for the sale of seed potatoes, lime and fertiliser. Bill Stutters was retired when he became NLHS secretary c. 1986, and devoted much time to the society, gradually increasing the range of garden products stocked. An access ramp to the store doors, for use by wheelbarrows as well as less able members, was constructed, with help from Groundwork Lincolnshire, shortly after Bill’s death. A further improvement, the replacement of the deteriorating asbestos roof, was achieved in 2004 with a grant from the Esme Fairbairn Foundation. During 2008, various NLHS members including Tony and Linda Abbott, and Pat Kempton, cleared quantities of broken roof slates and limestone rubble to create a flower border in front of the store.

10 Mount Street

The earliest record of this forgotten site (to the south side of Mount Street, bounded by Olive Street and Mildmay Street) is in 1917, when the City Council operated a site with eleven plots which reduced to seven by 1920. The 1920 OS map revision shows an undeveloped L-shaped area in this position, but it was not labelled as allotments. In December 1926 the City Education Committee wrote to plot holders that they had decided to level the whole of the land adjacent to the school site, and gave six months notice to vacate their plots, as from 1/1/1927. In April 1927 the Committee wrote to six tenants that they had decided not to continue levelling the remainder of the site at that time. Three tenants remained in July 1934 when the Committee notified them that they had decided to replace the existing school accommodation with a permanent building on the allotments area, and three month’s notice was given (LAO Lincoln City Educ File /1145).

11 [Union Workhouse]

A small block of allotments, about 1.5 acres, is marked on the 1904-5 OS map revision to the south of the Lincoln Union Workhouse and behind properties on Yarborough Terrace and Carline Road. It does not seem to have existed in 1885-6 when the field was undeveloped.

12 Yarborough Road/Brown’s Closes

The land block known as ‘Brown’s Closes’ lay between Yarborough Road and Carline Road. In January 1915 the Land Utilisation Committee reported that it had been unable to obtain Brown’s Closes for allotments; it was claimed at a council meeting that this was because the middle-class Aldermen and Councillors objected to the men going into that neighbourhood (Lincoln Leader 9/1/1915, in Lincoln City Council Meetings 1915-16: Newspaper Reports). In August 1916, seven residents wrote a letter asking for plots in this location. The Finance Committee replied that it was not possible as the land was let yearly, and was for sale at that time (Lincoln Leader 5/8/1916 ‘Yarborough Road want allotments’). However, the City Council took over operation of the land from a Mr Kent later in 1916-17, and provided 31 plots. In March 1919 the council refused permission for huts to be erected on the site (LAO HP 31: Minutes of joint meeting of Building, Improvements and Public Baths Committee, and the Cultivation of Lands Committee, 25/3/1919). Dr Mary Lucas has written how a pigeon loft was permitted on the site 'for wartime purposes' during World War II (Lucas, M. 1999 A Bit of History).

An intended extension of Alexandra Terrace across the allotment site was aborted on cost grounds in July 1923 (Finance, Estates and General Purposes Committee 23/7/23). In July 1927 the LDAHA asked for a urinal to be provided on the site; this was provided the next year near to the Alexandra Terrace entrance, at a cost of £14 (SHAC 15/7/27 and 16/3/28). In 1950 it had been dismantled (FED Sept 1950). An 8ft strip of land at the western edge of the site (beside No. 119 Yarborough Road) was bought by that householder in 1947 for a private garage (SHAC 10/10/47). One plot was affected in 1966 when subsidence of Carline Road occurred (FED 2/7/66).

Contemporary photographs of the site exist, held by the Lincolnshire Illustrations Index, ref. LCL 7712a & b.

A scheme for a public viewing area and childrens’ play area was considered by the council in 1985 but for cost reasons was not pursued. In March 1988 there were 30 plots on the 3.890 acre site, but about 1.5 acres were vacant. In 2008, only one allotment plot remains in use. The remainder of the site is a Millennium Green, known as Liquorice Park. Funds raised by The ‘Halfway up the Hill Festival’, held annually on Victoria Street, were used to seek Millenium Green status for the under-used allotment site. It is difficult to know to what extent the driving force for this change was local residents’ concerns about future residential development of the allotment site, especially after a borehole survey commissioned by the council suggested that ground conditions were not suitable for house foundations. The change in function can be traced to a successful application made in November 1997 for 1.5ha of the statutory allotment site to be released to become a public open space. In September 1998 the Friends of Yarborough Road Allotments Trust was formed (Lincs Target, 10/9/1998). Work started in November 1999; landscaping was supervised by Groundwork Lincolnshire, producing stepped paths up the hillside (Lincs. Echo 16/12/1999). Fruit trees were planted, although much of the area is currently overgrown, providing a useful wildlife habitat but raising questions as to how best to manage the area. Regular work on Liquorice Park is conducted by volunteers. In 2007 a series of mosaics were created with guidance from Alexandra Terrace resident and artist Richard Bett, but were rapidly destroyed by vandalism. Richard has been training some bushes into topiary forms of a dog and cat (2011).

13 Hampton Street (North and South)

Nineteen plots to the north and south of Hampton Street, extending to Yarborough Road, were operated by the City Council during 1916-17. In January 1917 Alderman Cottingham recommended that City-owned land on south side of Yarborough Road would be sufficient to meet allotment demand, and the creation of the site presumably dates from early that year. The two separate sites are marked as allotments on the OS 1920 revision. In 1928 the council sold two plots on the north side for building and announced that the land on the south side (with twelve plots) would be needed for a school in 1929 (SHAC minutes March 1926, March 1928). The contract for building the school was signed in August 1930. A further plot at the north-east corner of the site was needed for road improvements in 1932 (SHAC 5/2/32). The remainder of the northern area was later used by the school for gardens, and became a car park in the mid 1960s. Information from: Ken Ward and John Wheatley.

14 Moor Street/Woodstock Street

The OS 1904 map revision shows the site as fronting onto Moor Street, and extending from the back of Drake Street properties northwards to the backs of West Parade houses. This was the site of Foster’s brick yard and pit in 1868, with the former track from Newland Street West fossilised into the boundary of the allotment site. By 1920 the site had moved, and was marked as on the land to the west (OS Plot 385) which extended south of the end of Drake Street to Norman House, no longer on the brickworks land. The site was operated by the City Council from 1917-18. It is mentioned in the 1960-61 Lincoln West End Association records between 1960-61 and 1969-70, and is probably the West End site which suffered damage from stray cattle in 1948 (FED Sept 1948). In 1951 32 plots were privately owned. Use of part of the site for a school was approved in 1975, and the land was sold to Lincoln Diocesan Trust and Board of Finance Ltd in April 1982 (LAO SR 617/4/1 St Faith’s School, Lincoln conveyance 1982). St Faith’s Church of England First School was built on the northern end of the site, and the remainder was used for garages and subsequently redeveloped as housing. Information: Tony and Linda Abbott, N. Jackson.

15a Carholme Road, Fisons/Severn Street

Linda and Tony Abbott and Mrs Oram have recalled that Fisons owned an unknown number of plots beside their fertiliser factory, south of Carholme Road. The site is described as mostly having been at the south end of Severn Street and Derwent Street, with a thin strip to the east of Derwent Street extending to Carholme Road; now the Roman Wharf housing estate. The 1920 OS revision marks a small L-shaped block of allotments to the south of Sutton Street, extending to the Foss Bank towpath. In 1951 there were 14 plots on 0.8 acre and it was expected to be developed for industry. Allotments at the southern end of Severn Street are visible on a 1957 air photograph.

15b Newsum’s Villas

Mrs Oram has recalled an allotment site to the south of Carholme Road, behind Newsum’s Villas (nine dwellings located three houses west of Severn Street and east of the Golf Club), which extended to the Foss Bank towpath. There was a path in the middle which led to Carholme Road. The site subsequently became Newsum’s joinery works. In 1951 it seems to have been treated as part of 15a. No other information has been traced for this site.

16 Woodhall Drive

In 1972 the council proposed to create a ‘model site’ here, and it was in use by 1974. In 1988 the City Council operated 21 plots on the 2.611 acre site but a document noted poor ground conditions, weeds and vandalism that had contributed over several years to the site’s unpopularity. About 0.5 acres was vacant. Disposal of the site was suggested to the council in October 1990 but the suggestion was rejected. The site has now been developed.

17 Ermine/ Riseholme Rd

A narrow block of allotments is shown on the OS 1905 map revision to the east of a stone quarry and limekilns on the east side of Riseholme Road. In 1940, 31 plots belonging to the Dean and Chapter were on this site. Minutes dating from July 1946 mention that the land was required for development, and that the tenants were to be offered plots at Long Leys Road (FED July 1946). It appears that the repossession did not take place, as in March 1959 it was announced that part of the site was needed for a residential Home for the Elderly. This proposal rumbled on for several years and a request for 21 plots was refused again in 1963 (FED March 1963). In March 1988 there were 21 plots remaining, with 17 plots in an east-west aligned block, with a further four to the south-east end at the rear of Laughton Way. Proposals to build a fire station on the site were refused in November 1990.

This site is one of only three that are known to have had any pigeon lofts (the others being Wragby Road and Yarborough Road). In December 1976 there was no objection to an application for a loft, as ‘racing pigeons do not come to land on the gardens’ (FED Dec 1976). Intermittent vandalism and crop theft has discouraged allotment tenants, with plots becoming derelict for many years. Most plot-holders have moved to other sites. For the past decade the City Council has considered this site suitable for future sale (SHAC 5/3/1959).

18 [Longdales Road]

A square allotment site is shown to the north of Longdales Road on the 1905 map revision, approximately in the position of Harpswell Road. The site is not thought to have survived much longer.

19 St Giles

In May 1939 the council hoped to provide 10.5 acres off Outer Circle Road (part of the Wilson estate) as allotments, and it also wanted to remove 4.5 acres of land zoned for housing to provide ‘permanent’ allotments (SHAC 5/5/1939). In 1944 a stoney field to the north-east of the estate was described as of ‘poor quality but probably available’ (SHAC 14/7/44). This may have been the land owned by G. Inkley with an entrance at the end of Macaulay Drive, which was deep ploughed and laid out as 18 x 0.25 rood plots in November that year (SHAC 20/10/44). A 1948 air photograph shows it north-east of Goldsmith Walk and to the north of the childrens’ home. It has now been developed as housing.

20 Lincoln Field Farm

A 1940 map shows about 7 acres of allotments east of Nettleham Road and west of the Lincoln Field Farm buildings. This is thought to be the 7.247 acre Nettleham Road site with 59 plots that the Lincoln Corporation owned and operated from 1921. A single dated reference to the site has been found, relating to the transfer of plotholders from Nettleham Road to the Lincoln Field Farm allotments in 1933 (SHAC 13/10/33). Helen Ash has recalled that her grandparents lived at 63 Macauley Drive and at the rear of their garden near The Oval her grandfather had one of a small block of allotments enclosed by houses, which could not be seen from the road.

21 Wragby Road [North]

This 3.428 acre site is shown on the 1905 OS map revision and occupied land beside a quarry at the edge of the city, just east of the modern junction of Outer Circle Drive and Wragby Road; it may have been an earlier quarry. Five plots were let by the City Council in 1918 (‘Schedule of lands within the City of Lincoln’ was prepared by the Town Clerk’s Dept for the Lindsey War Agricultural Executive Comm under the ‘Defence of the Realm: Cultivation of Lands Order 1917’. LAO Lincoln Town Clerk Files 198 1/2/1918). It was no longer labelled as allotments on the 1920 OS map revision, and by 1940 had been developed as housing beside Goldsmith’s Walk and Wragby Road.

22a Nettleham Road

The 1905 map revision marks a 13.186 acres allotment site fronting onto the west side of Nettleham Road, north of St Peter’s Rectory, east of St John’s cemetery, and south of the line of Broadway. The site was owned by Willsons Trustees. A small part of the allotment site was taken for Manor Road in 1920. Plots suffered damage from pigs which strayed from the fields of Lincoln Field Farm (SHAC 2/10/24).. Reg Woodward, in his published reminiscences Boy on a hill (1984) recorded how, along Nettleham Road in the 1920s, ‘old men appeared with barrows and shovels to collect the horse dung for their allotments’. By the early 1930s, more of the site was being taken for housing development and plotholders were moved to the Lincoln Field Farm allotment site (SHAC 13/10/33). The developed Nettleham Road frontage provided some security for the remaining sites but gradually the land was taken. The NLHS managed to extend the tenancy of the last remaining plots long enough to lift the over-wintered crops, but this site appears to have closed in May 1934 or soon afterwards (SHAC 9/2/1934).

22b Air photographs from 1946 and 1947 show a block of allotment plots extending to the north of the earlier Nettleham Road site, west and east of the modern Nettleham Close. These may be the ‘new allotments’ which were staked out by the council in early 1934 (SHAC 9/2/1934). The council was unwilling to install a water supply later that year (SHAC 20/11/1934).

23 Wragby Road [South]

23a The earliest certain reference to this site dates from the City Council’s first renting from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of the land for 203 allotment plots in 1920. Earlier references citing ‘Wragby Road’ may relate to the much smaller site 23b. During the first year, £1 10s was raised by the Highways Committee from plot rental (LAO Lincoln City Council Highways Committee 1921-22, 89). In September 1922, part of the underground ironstone mine tunnels collapsed, affecting the allotments and the prison land to the south (Press cuttings folder, Lincoln central library). Council minutes from February 1924 reported that the Mid Lincs. Iron Company had removed supports from under a disused tunnel on part of the 27 acre field (probably OS Field 265), by arrangement with the council, but permanent subsidence had then occurred on several allotment plots (SHAC 11/2/24). The episode probably explains the parents of a girl living in St Giles in the mid-late 1930s banning her from visiting her father’s allotment site for fear that the ground would open and swallow the child up (anecdote related by Stewart Squires).

With the end of mining below the field, development of the Wragby Road frontage began. In January 1926, allotment holders learnt that the site owners were to take 39 plots (SHAC 27/1/26). It appears that the council gave up the land but continued to rent two of the plots to tenants. The mistake was only discovered thirteen years later, and the council kept the rental income (SHAC 7/7/39).

The site is visible on an air photograph of 1957 (BKS Air Survey Ltd 1957 air photograph 512331). An apiary was erected on the allotment site in 1958 (SHAC 16/10/58). At an unknown date, Mr Green had a pigeon loft on this site. Three plots close to Wragby Road were provided for use by the scouts and guides, with a hut constructed on the plots in 1966 (SHAC 4/1/66). Thirty plots were taken from the southern part of the site in 1949 for prison officers’ housing and more were lost for a prison officers’ childrens’ playground in 1966 (FED July 1946; SHAC 8/4/49 & 2/7/66. By March 1988 the Wragby Road allotment site had 145 plots on 9.794 acres, and other parts of the site have been taken out of use since. The Monks Road Allotment Holders Association hold a scarecrow contest on the site each year. A 6.4 acre piece of former allotment land at the eastern end of the site is known as 'Darwin's Field' because it is claimed that the evolutionist owned land here (Lincs. Echo 6/2/2001).

23b In April 1949 a vacant piece of land ‘opposite Austen Walk’ (to the east of the present Tesco store) was allocated for allotments, replacing 30 plots of the main Wragby Road site sold for prison officers’ housing (Lincoln City Council Parks, Markets and Cemeteries Committee minutes 8/4/49).

24 Gerald’s Close

Early in the Second World War, the City Council arranged for 10 acres of land at Wragby Road to be taken by the Horticulture Committee for cultivation. No location was given but it might relate to land now occupied by Gerald’s Close which appears to be under allotments on a 1946 air photograph. These may have been the allotments which were ‘required immediately’ for other uses in July 1946, when tenants were to be moved ‘further down Wragby Road’. In 1951 20 plots were on 2.5 acres at Gerald’s Close which were destined to be developed as private housing, and by 1957 few remained (BKS Air Survey Ltd 1957 air photograph 512329).

25 Monks’ Manor/Queensway

A Lincoln Workers’ Educational Association publication mentions a ‘Communal Garden’ started by the Lincoln WEA Peoples’ Service Club in 1932 on the Monks’ Manor Estate (Fancy a man from Pond Street knowing his ABC: 75 years of the Lincoln WEA, 1986). Monks’ Manor was a large house with landscaped grounds. The 2.5 acre communal garden was loaned by Colonel Ruston, under supervision of W. Lovejoy, a gardener. It was laid out with a rockery and a herbaceous border, fruit trees and vegetables. Produce was distributed to alleviate local hardship.

A 1940 map marks allotments in this position, west of Queensway. During 1939 ‘the whole of Queensway’ had been ploughed and let as allotment gardens, requisitioned under the Cultivation of Land (Allotments) Order 1939 (SHAC 25/9/39). A surviving ledger shows that between April 1944 and 1955 seventeen Queensway allotments were let through James Martin on behalf of the Swanpool Estate (LAO 4 Martin/2/12/2). Most of the tenants (including J.H. Ruddock) were residents of Queensway houses. The landowners asked for the land back in 1947, but the council said it would retain it until the next year (SHAC special meeting 16/5/47).

26 Greetwell Road

The 128 plot site, north of Greetwell Road and one field west of Outer Circle Drive, was operated by the City Council from 1922 on 16.65 acres of land belonging to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. A reference to the ‘new allotments’ in February 1922 described them as ‘absolutely stoney’ (Lincoln Review 43, 18/2/22). The allotments were on ground above Wilson’s Mine and were sited beside a limestone quarry. An extensive area of allotments is marked on the OS 1930s revision.

Ground levelling was needed across the site in 1940, presumably as a result of subsidence or settling of backfill (SHAC special meeting 6/9/40). In 1958 the council was considering either buying the site for £3000 or releasing it for development; the allotments were not 'statutory' but were adjacent to statutory plots owned by Mr F. Wheatley (SHAC 13/2/58). 27 plots were taken for the first units of an industrial estate in January 1975 (FED Oct 1973). The rest of the site remained as allotments until shortly after 1977.

Jen Mann and Malc Otter kept an allotment on the site for several years after 1975-6. A few photographs show their chicken shed and the sty where Ermintrude the pig helpfully recycled waste food before she herself entered the food chain (courtesy of the Curtis’s abbatoir). They remembered an individual known to them as ‘Chokey’ who shot rats on the site, which came from the rubbish pit filling the former quarry workings. On a hot day, heat could be seen rising as steam from the buried rubbish, and mushrooms grew wild on the site.

27 St Anne’s Road

This 1.635 acre site was probably sited on a former stone quarry. It is known from the 1904 OS revision, and the 1930s revision. Fred Hurt's father had two plots on this site, paying for only one because of the position of a row of trees and the curved edge of the plot. He sub-let it to a Polish plotholder. In August 1942, a bomb fell onto the allotment site (probably on Plot 5) opposite 'Baverstock' and a western entrance to the County Hospital. The bomb had been dropped by a German plane which had been pursued from Hucknall aerodrome in Notts, and is thought to have mistaken the hospital chimney for a factory (F. Hurt 1991 Lincoln during the War, 57). The crater was backfilled by its Polish plotholder with soil from other plots, causing irritation to the other tenants who were unaware of the crater. Fred Hurt's sister can remember a Mr Whisker having a plot, but no other tenant's names.

Part of the site can be identified as allotments on an air photograph of 1957 but is now a car park or developed as housing.

28 Hospital Nursing Home

A 2.673 acre block was used for allotments in 1904 but was replaced by a hospital building before 1920.

29 Mainwaring Allotments

In 1885 Duncan McInnes JP, then secretary of the Lincoln Co-operative Society, originated a scheme described nearly forty years later as ‘Lincoln’s first organised scheme of allotments on the principle of “No profit”’ (Lincoln Leader c.1923, Privileged Peeps in Lincoln, No. 6). These allotments were beside Greetwell road, and the reference to ‘many hundreds of Lincoln’s toilers’ suggests the Mainwaring allotment site although this remains unconfirmed.

The OS map revision of 1904-5 shows a c.40 acre allotment site on the hillside south of Greetwell Road and the positions of the later cul-de-sac ends of Clarina Street and Frederick Street. In February 1918 15.5 acres of land held by Mr Mainwaring was let as allotments (LAO Lincoln Corporation Town Clerk Files 198 1/2/1918). Combined with the Monks Road allotments, this represented all of the Monks Abbey ironstone mine and quarry which had been opened in 1873 (http://www.photrek.co.uk/greetwell.htm).

By April 1933,allotments occupied the position of an ironstone mine which had extended to within 50 yards of the County Hospital boundary walls (‘Random Recollections’ Lincs. Chronicle and Leader Supplement, April 1933). From the 1930s, the eastern end of the site was developed with housing estates. In January 1939 the council reported that the Mainwaring allotment site was to be bought for £3040, borrowed from the Ministry of Health (SHAC 24/1/39). The site is visible on an air photograph taken in March 1946 but the Lincoln Federation of Allotments minutes of July 1946 record that the site was required immediately. Despite this urgency, in 1958 Fields 4 and 5 were being mentioned (with Roman Pavement residents' back gates leading onto the plots, vacant plots were divided into half-sized plots in 1959, and 34 plots remained on the site in March 1988 (SHAC 19/7/58; FED Jun 1958 & Aug 1959). The site was again under threat in 1972 (FED Nov 1972). In 1997 nine plots out of 22 available were in use. A retaining wall built in 1960 beside the footpath through the allotment sites linking Milman Road to Clarina Street still remains (SHAC 30/11/60).

Following publication of Lincoln's Allotments: A History in August 2008, Miss I.K. Rasen wrote to record her happy childhood memories of the Mainwaring allotments where her father had a plot on the present hospital grounds. They lived 'at the top house of Bernard Street'. He kept a pig, and Miss Rasen had a small area which she cultivated.

Pearl Wheatley provided a photograph of a boar which serviced pigs on the Mainwaring and Greetwell allotment sites. The boar was walked by Frank, Harry and Henry Wheatley on a halter. Their own allotments were on the Mainwaring site.

30 Monks Road

The City Council had 45 allotment plots off Monks Road from 1917, and the OS 1920 map revision marks allotments north of Monks Road, east of Frederick Street and to the east side of the modern Hillside Approach. Part of the site, previously within ironstone workings, proved unsuitable (SHAC 16/3/28). The infertile area, owned by C. Mainwaring, was used after 1927 for garages for motor cycles etc. (SHAC 5/2/32). The Monks Road frontage was developed after 1933 (SHAC 13/1/33). 1946 and 1957 air photographs show allotments extending across the former mine workings to the bend in the modern Hillside Avenue.

Linda Abbott has recollected that the allotments on the site of Hillside had no piped water supply, but buckets were filled from a spring that flowed down the slope.

From February 1958, plots were not being relet by the council.

31a Monks Tower/Ellesmere Avenue

Monks Tower Field, Monks Road, property of WFB Massey Mainwaring, 18 acres, grassland let at 70 shillings/acre (Stamford Mercury 18/4/1894).

The City Council operated an allotment site from 1919, with 67 plots. In 1944 the council gave notice that 74 plots on the 12.5 acre site would be needed for building (SHAC 21/3/44). In 2008 this site was thought to have been around the former Crofton House, now under the Battle Hayward premises at the north-western corner of the Allenby Road trading estate. A reassessment suggests that the site may have been further west, within the city boundary and to the south of Monks Tower. Monks Tower was sited to the west of the present Allenby Road, and the Monks Tower housing estate is to the south of Greetwell Road in that location. No mapped allotment plots have been found at this location (OS Plots 278 and 279a-c), which is now developed for housing.

31b To confuse the issue, a SHAC minute of 17/4/1958 refers to 65 plots at Monks Tower wanted for industrial use, and the notice to quit allotments on the Monks Tower site in 1963 specifically referred to plots surrounding Crofton House (SHAC 25/4/63). This land was within Greetwell parish, and is assumed to be where the council provided 33 plots from 1917-18. This was probably within a 4.18 acre block of land rented from the Eccclesiatical Commissioners. The Lindum Stone Company entered into negotiations with the council in 1924, hoping to rent the site (presumably for ironstone working) but these were abortive and the proposal was rejected the next year (SHAC 2/10/24 and 27/2/25). It was announced at the start of 1927 that the site owners required the field back ‘for industrial purposes’ (SHAC 21/1/27).

Part of the site was marked as allotments on the 1920 OS revision, and the fullest extent was marked on the 1930s map (OS Plots 71 and 71a); it is also visible on a 1946 RAF air photograph (3G/TUD/UK 197/pt IV 10/5/1946 fr.5404-5).

The Battle Hayward Ltd firm, on the site of former allotments now taken by the Allenby Road trading estate, has helped many allotment holders in Lincoln by selling large blue thick-gauge plastic barrels which have previously held cider vinegar or other liquids; they make excellent water butts.

32 Greetwell Allotments [Cherry Bank]

The only identified mention of this 1.268 acre site is in 1939 when the council was instructed by the land owner to maintain fencing around the site (SHAC 5/5/1939). The council response was to terminate the tenancy, with the vacating of eleven plots. This site may be the small triangular block marked on the 1930s OS revision, and visible on 1946 RAF air photograph (3G/TUD/UK 197/pt IV 10/5/1946 fr.5404). This land is at the southern edge of the Allenby Road trading estate, and continued into the land occupied until 2007 by Simons Ltd and since redeveloped as Cherry Bank. In 2007 two fruit trees were growing within the trading estate part of the former allotment site, and these may be a surviving relic of the allotments.

33 Spike Island [west]

To the west of the Boultham Curve railway line, and bounded by railway lines on all sides, were the ‘Ruston & Hornsby allotments’, occupying 15.017 acres. These were allotments in 1904 and 1940 and can be distinguished on an 1948 air photograph. It may have an earlier origin, as Henry Brummitt had a plot and grew potatoes in about 1893 on a Spike Island allotment site, either this block or 36 (The Leader c1923, Privileged Peeps in Lincoln No. 18).

34 [Holmes]

34a The 1940 map shows a 3 acre block of ‘LNER allotments’ in a 12 acre field immediately east of the Holmes West junction.

34b Mrs Froggatt has described (and provided a sketch map of) an allotment site between the Great Northern and Great Central railway lines to the south of the Ropewalk, which was in use in the 1920s. By coincidence, on the day of the launch of Lincoln's Allotments: A History (16/8/2008), L. May from Cheshire, a correspondent to the Lincolnshire Echo, wrote that 'her grandfather was at signalman at West Holmes in Lincoln as as a little girl I spent my Sunday mornings at his allotment there before riding home on the crossbar of my dad's bike!'. Attempts to trace the writer (who stated she had worked at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life when it first opened) were unsuccessful.

35 [Spike Island Works]

This site is shown on an OS map revision of c.1930 to the north of the Spike Island Works, but had been developed by 1940.

36 Spike Island [east]

The OS map revision of 1904 shows a block of allotments north of Beevor Street and north-west of the Spike Island works. Either this site or 33 has an earlier origin, as Henry Brummitt had a plot and grew potatoes in about 1893 on a Spike Island allotment site (The Leader c1923, Privileged Peeps in Lincoln No. 18). Allotments were not marked on the 1920 map revision but were labelled on that of the 1930s. 86 acres of land at Spike Island were bought by Rustons between 1909 and 1916, including the allotment land. An undated photograph displayed as part of the Ruston's exhibition at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life shows these plots. By 1940 the land had been developed by Ruston & Hornsby Excavator Works.

37 Skewbridge/Swanpool Estate

This allotment site, immediately east of the Swan Pool, was accessed via an underpass below an angled railway bridge from Spike Island. A Prospectus issued by the Swanpool Co-operative Housing Society in June 1919 envisaged a garden village with shops centred on the Swanpool and extending to the Skellingthorpe Road. Numerous proposed areas for allotments or orchards, and ‘private allotments’ were marked. Most of these coincided with the later mapped extent of the Skewbridge allotment site, apart from one block marked to the west of the pool. It is unclear from the Prospectus whether any of these allotments were already in existence in 1919 (none were marked on earlier maps), but part of the area is labelled as allotments on the 1920 OS revision. A slightly smaller area was marked in the 1930s and it remained unchanged c. 1940. An extensive area is visible on air photographs of 1946 and 1948, but by 1957 most of the plots appeared to be unused.

The site was an amalgamation of different but adjacent blocks, which may explain how the site was later taken out of use gradually. Initially they were rented through a single agent, James Martin. The Swanpool sites were: Five Acre (41 plots); Skewbridge (35 plots), Centre Plots (20 plots); 25 Acre (183 plots); 25 Acre extension (9 plots); and Dog Racing Field (7 plots). The earliest date recorded for a tenancy starting was November 1922 on the Centre Plots field. Five Acres, Skewbridge and 25 Acres seem to have started in April 1923. The 25 Acre extension began in April 1930, and Dog Racing Field had tenants from April 1948.

Mr Codd (now tending a plot at Boultham Glebe) started working a plot at age 14 on the site then owned by Miss Ruston. He has related that several plotholders lived in their huts, at least occasionally; a Jack Hawkins had a bath in his hut which he used. Jack’s hut was called Teapot Hall, referring to the teapot on his weathervane. The allotment site was gradually taken for a landfill site, and the scrap metal dumped between the wars was re-excavated during the Second World War . The landfill phase is understood to have been a deliberate stage in the raising of the low-lying ground in preparation for later development.

An example of a rental agreement, by the owner Mrs E. Wells of Beverley, East Yorks, survives (no horses, cattle or pigs, but poultry were ‘not prohibited’) at the back of a large ledger recording payments by tenants of individual plots; the agreement must be later than 1939 when Colonel Ruston died. In 1943 the Skewbridge site sent a representative to meetings of the Boultham Allotment Holders’ Association. The plot-holders’ wartime complaints included damage by straying horses, and the state of the road under the railway bridge (BAHA 27/8/45). It was arranged that the anti-tank barricade under the railway bridge would be re-used as road material when it had been demolished following the end of the Second World War (BAHA 7/1/46).

Council minutes record how any vacant plots of land at Skewbridge were to be purchased for use as council allotments, and that allotment land there was in the local plan (City of Lincoln Town Planning Committee 23/3/49). At that date the sites were still apparently entirely privately rented, as the Swanpool Estate rent books extend to April 1956 with no allotment tenancies after 1955.

The City of Lincoln Skewbridge Compulsory Purchase Order 1952, issued under Section 25 of the Smallholdings and Allotments Act 1908 was intended to purchase the site for the purpose of providing allotments across a 67.644 acre site, most of which was owned by Mrs E. Wells. The apparently empty allotments on the 1957 air photograph could relate to a general rearrangement of the sites still in progress in February 1958, creating the single Skewbridge Allotment Site. This must mark the start of the City Council rentals. At that time, 267 plots were available and 178 had been re-let (SHAC 13/2/58). Two months later, the council heard of an encampment of gypsy travellers on the site. They had been requested to leave but had not yet done so. One aspect which had raised concern was that one member of the group was pregnant and had been admitted to the Maternity Home but had been discharged without giving birth (SHAC 17/4/58).

An intention to redevelop the allotment site was discussed by allotment holders in February 1962; the minutes record that it was discussed after a more pressing complaint about rats on another site (FED Feb 1962)! It is interesting to note that the allotments suffered flooding in the winter of 1965-66 (SHAC 4/1/66).

38 Boultham, Church Drive/Fosters Field

A 55-plot, 7.333 acre, allotment site off Church Drive, Boultham was operated by the City Council from 1921 on land belonging to Wm Foster and Co Ltd. The earliest record is from a plan produced in November 1920, when boys at Boultham Boys School had an arithmetic lesson producing a plan of the school field and Fosters Field – possibly when the allotment site first came into council operation. The plan also shows eight plots at the railway end of the school field, although by February 1921 the intention was that this field to the rear of Boultham School was to be a school garden with just four allotments . Foster’s Field was located west of Boultham Park Road, near the tin tabernacle church, and extending westwards to the railway line bordering the northern edge of the Skewbridge allotment site. There is a hint that this was (or had been) a fairground (LAO School Sites 1/14/825, Oct 1923).

An extension to the Foster’s Field site was provided by Wm Foster and Co Ltd in April 1924. The firm suggested that the council let from them two pieces of land alongside the south and east sides of the Church Drive allotment site for £8 15s pa (SHAC 14/4/24). The OS 1930s revision shows a block of allotments to the east of the railway line but this does not seem to be the complete block. The same plots are visible on air photographs of 1946 and 1957. Flooding affected the site in the winter of 1931-2 (SHAC 5/2/32). In 1961 the owners Foster Gwynnes required the land back in 1962-3 (SHAC 6/8/60; FED Sept 1961).

39 [West of river, west of Peel Street]

No records have been found other than a map of c.1940 which shows a small allotment site.

40 [Chieftain Way]

A part field of allotments to the south of the railway in 1940 is visible on air photographs of 1946 and 1957.

41 [Sunningdale Drive]

No records have been found for this site other than an annotated map of 1940..

42 Boultham Glebe/ Glebe Field

This allotment site east of Boultham Park Road was on glebe land, and was owned by the Revd. W.W. Leeke in 1924 (SHAC 2/10/24). The 199 plot site was first mentioned in 1920-21 when it was taken over from the Boultham Urban District Council. The 1920 OS revision shows four separate fields of allotments totalling 32.57 acres. In 1922 the council agreed to provide a gate at the end of the footbridge which crossed the drain at the east side of the site, and intended to clean out the drain around the southern and eastern boundaries twice a year (SHAC 19/12/22). Early in 1924 the frontage of Boultham Park Road was taken for housing, with a rearrangement of the site to enable this (SHAC 11/2/24). Surplus land beside the pumping station was staked out as allotment plots but it did not represent additional plots. Two months later the council built a sleeper bridge across the Catchwater Drain, providing access to Altham Terrace and to the Boultham Park allotment site (SHAC 14/4/24).

Tenants on the site suffered cattle damage in June 1946. Stagnant water was also the subject of complaint, and onion stealing was reported to police the same year (BAHA June, August and 2/9/46; FED July 1946). By March 1988 the City Council operated 150 plots on the 21.5 acres site. Land is still owned by Lincoln Diocesan Trust, which was considering residential development of the site in 1991 (Lincs. Echo 3/1/1991; 5/1/1991).

Ted Wilkinson's father had a plot beside their Boultham Park Road house when hwe was born in 1924. An adjacent plot was intended to be used for a church but was used as a dump by locals. His plot was at the end of Marjorie Avenue. Land to the north was lower than the track and land to the right and used to freeze over. The dairy was opened in 1929. His plot is now developed with bungalows.

43 St Andrew’s Drive

A 3 acre site was shown on the 1920 map between Brancaster Drive and St Andrew’s Drive, behind properties fronting onto Boultham Park Road. It was owned by J.A. Macdonald and still let in 1940. It is not visible on 1946 air photographs.

44 [Clive Avenue]

A small number of plots were mapped to the north of Clive Avenue in 1940. No other records have been found.

45 Boultham Park

In January 1923 the council started to rent 22.84 acres of land belonging to Messrs E.W. Kirk and Macdonald at the south-west part of the present site (SHAC 22/1/23). Allotments are not shown on earlier maps. The rental was agreed at £91 pa; by May 1923 177 plots were staked out. Initially the negotiations covered three fields, but only two were rented (SHAC 22/5/23). By early 1924 77 plots had been let, and the council recognised that 5 acres between the Boultham Baths and the river was unsuitable for allotments (SHAC 11/2/24). By 1925 the council was considering whether there were more plots than there was demand, and whether some should be returned; 3.38 acres were returned to J.A. Macdonald (SHAC 27/2/25 & 17/7/25). In 1929 the council bought 10.78 acres at the north-east part of the park as ‘permanent allotments’. It was in negotiations in January 1931 with a Mrs E. Blank to buy for £770 an 11 acre block of allotments which adjoined that block to the south, but in practice only 8.68 acres had been bought by February 1932 from J.A. Macdonald and D.E. Smith (SHAC 9/1/31 & 5/2/32). In July 1932 the former John o’ Gaunt’s Tennis Club premises, beside the baths, were taken into allotment use (SHAC 8/7/32). Winter flooding of the site occurred in the winter of 1931-2, as a result of a thaw of snow (SHAC 5/2/32 & 8/7/32).

In 1944 there was a complaint about a horse and cart cutting up the road in the allotments. (BAHA 4/12/44). During 1949 the Upper Witham Internal Drainage Board needed to construct a pump house adjacent to Boultham Baths, and in order to regrade and deepen the Witham and Delph the new pump house was to be moved west onto allotment land to preserve the flood bank (SHAC special meeting 9/9/49).

The site was 11.36 acres in extent in 1988, with 91 plots until an additional piece of land was taken in 1989 for construction of a nursing home. Livestock continued to be permitted on this site.

46 Tritton Road

This 12 plots, 0.649 acre site was created in 1969 on land behind houses to the east of Skellingthorpe Road and backing onto the railway line. It was intended to be laid out to a high standard, using income raised from the sale of a site to the north of Boultham Moor (possibly the site to the west of Skellingthorpe Road, 48). It remains in use.

47 Six Fields/Uffington Ave

The Six Fields site, west of Skellingthorpe Road and north of the railway, is documented from March 1918 when it was apparently operated by the City Council (although this date seems too early for a Boultham site). It is not shown on OS maps and has not been identified on air photographs. The Six Fields site was still in allotment use in 1957 and 1958 and an application was made for private garages on part of the site in late 1960 (FED Dec 1960). In 1967, requests for car parking spaces for worshippers at the adjacent Prospect Hall were refused, but similar requests were made at intervals until some land was sold for that purpose (SHAC 28/11/67). A plan prepared in June 1976 shows 66 plots remaining, of which only 29 remained let, mostly to adjoining houesholders on Uffington Avenue (CoL Council Dept of Planning and Architecture, dwg SW U 1154, June 1976). By 1997 it was known as the Uffington Avenue Garage Site and was no longer used for allotments.

48 Skellingthorpe Road

Despite the size of this site, south of Skellingthorpe Road, very little information has been identified. It was marked on a 1940 map. It seems to have been 15.87 acres, with 56 plots in 1951, shortly before the construction of Tritton Road across part of it.

49 Greenbank Drive/ De Wint Avenue/Bowden Drive

In 1952 7.72 acres of land south of De Wint Avenue was purchased from Colonel and Miss D. Warren for allotments (SHAC 26/6/59). This was immediately to the south of 52a. The site is visible on a 1957 air photograph (BKS Air Survey Ltd 1957 air photograph 511766). By 1958 the council was planning to reduce the extent of the site, and not all of the site was under cultivation (SHAC 19/7/58 and FED Sept 1958). Nine garages were permitted in March 1963 (FED Mar 1963). In May 1966 plans were noted for a hostel to be built on three plots (SHAC 31/5/66). During the 1970s the site was contracted and moved. An aggrieved resident of Greenbank Drive was told by the council in 1974 that he ‘looked out onto possibly the best kept allotment area in the city’. Despite this claim, residents wanted quick growing screening hedges! By March 1988 15 plots remained on a site reduced to 0.9 acres, and only two were in use in 1997 when there were proposals to close it and merge it with an adjoining amenity site. Local councillors spearheaded a campaign to revive the site but this was not sustained.

50 Simon’s Hill/South of Boultham Park

This allotment site originated in the winter of 1930-31 when the City Council made use of the Agricultural Land (Utilisation) Bill (Lincs. Chronicle 17/1/1931, p14 col 2). This Bill, operated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, defrayed the costs to councils of administering allotments for unemployed/part-time workers, and gave grants to local authorities to spend on the provision of seeds, fertilisers and equipment. The City Council opted to buy 10 acres south of the park for £500, for allocation to the ‘south district’ of the city. In January 1931 it invited applicants for the plots, and a voluntary committee arranged seed purchase and distribution, with five representatives from allotment associations and two WEA representatives. A more extensive block of allotments, probably at the same location, is recorded from February 1932. 70 (or 72) plots had been laid out on a 23 acre site and 12 plots let, but the fencing and drainage had not been completed. The drainage was expected to cost £350 (SHAC 6/5/32). In 1946 permanent allotments on the site wre 'required for other uses' but this may never have taken place (FED July 1946). Swine flu was reported on the site in 1962 (FED 18/5/62). Council statistics from March 1988 stated the Simon’s Hill site to have 71 plots on 9 acres, which suggests that the original field had never been more than partially used for allotments.

During the late 1990s, the author of this History was part of a coachload of councillors and site representatives conducting an annual tour of inspection. When the coach arrived at the Simon’s Hill site, councillors were concerned by a number of bonfires and shed fires which were taking place when they arrived. At that date the site had a reputation for steel-fenced ‘stockades’ inside which all manner of undesirable activities were suspected to take place. Very little allotment cultivation was taking place. One allotment holder spoke with some councillors and raised a number of matters which the councillors agreed to discuss on their return after they had looked at other parts of the site. While the councillors walked on, the author continued talking to the plotholder, and expected to rejoin the party when they returned a few minutes later. It was then noticed that the coach had moved – and that it was about to depart from beside another site entrance as all the councillors had climbed on board. Only the rapid action of a young resident on a bicycle prevented the coach leaving – and the allotment tenant never received the responses he had been promised.

51 Rookery Lane/Hainton Road

51a In March 1917 the Bracebridge UDC’s Allotment Committee heard that Messrs Kirk and Macdonald had 8.75 acres of arable land on Boultham Moor to let, and a decision was made to take over the land for allotments. The negotiations were completed and the site was set out in 13 days. A meeting of prospective allotment holders was arranged, and ten plotholders were chosen by a draw. They took on their 11s 6d plots on Good Friday (Bracebridge UDC statement re Allotments Committee and allotments, 23/3/1917). A tracing paper plan, in very poor condition, records the site in Dec 1917, and shows a road within the site. This is suspected to be the central site west of Rookery Lane, opposite St Peter’s Avenue and extending to the Pike Drain, with a combined acreage of 8.51 acres, which was marked as allotments on the OS map revision of 1904 and with most land developed by c.1930.

51b [Hainton Road]

This block, to the south of 51a, was marked as allotments on the 1920 OS map revision but had probably already lost some land at the eastern end by then. In 1940 it was owned by Miss Wallis. It was bought by the council in 1949-50 and taken for housing development in 1968 (FED Feb 1968; 132/59 5/3/1951).

51c Boultham Pumping Station

A small block of land to the north of 51a, beside the pumping station, was staked out as allotments in 1924.

52a [south of Sixhills]

The linear 11 acre field west of Pike Drain is shown as allotments on the 1904 OS map revision. It was allotments in 1912 owned by Mrs Blank, but was sold for a playing field in 1940. The location is now De Wint Avenue and the grounds of Ancaster High School.

52b Sixhills

The site was taken over by the City Council from Bracebridge UDC/Boultham RDC in 1921. The c. 8.5 acre, 29 plot, site was let from Messrs Smith, Kirk and Macdonald. When an allotment superintendent was appointed in 1922, this site was singled out as having the poorest payment record, with only 1s 6d taken in rent! The location of this site was not easy to trace, but the area and ownership of the plot on Boultham Moor in 1940 seem a good match.

53 Newark Road [north]

A 7.76 acre site, separated by one field from 52a, is shown as allotments on the 1904 OS map revision. It was no longer allotments in 1940.

54 Doddington Road

A small block of allotments is visible on an 1948 air photograph, north of Doddington Road and east of the railway line, behind Doddington Road housing (RAF CPE UK 4164 25/3/1948). No information has been forthcoming for the site. These could represent plots owned by the Lincoln Co-operative Society at an unknown date after 1910, some of which remained in use c. 1961.

55 [Greg Hall]

A block of allotments is marked on the 1920 OS map revision in a field between Newark Road and Hykeham Road. It is visible on a 1946 air photograph, but was later developed for housing.

56 Hykeham Road

The earliest mention of the 12.33 acre site east of Hykeham Road is from January 1946, although they are shown on the 1932 and 1940 Ordnance Survey maps and are visible on a 1946 RAF air photograph (RAF CPE UK 3G/TUD/UK 197/ 5499, 10/5/1946). At that time a Miss Selina Wallis owned land with about 50-60 private plots, considered suitable for ‘permanent’ allotments. In January 1949, the allotments were to be sold as a smallholding to a Mr Pye of Rookery Lane. Some of the plot holders asked the council if the plots could be retained (LAO Lincoln Town Clerk Files 7402 132/59 Minutes of meeting Finance, Estates and General Purposes Committee 14/1/1949) & Note to Finance Committee 10/2/1949). In response, the council agreed to start negotiations to buy ‘land eminently suitable for allotments’, and valued it at £800 exclusive of costs (LAO Lincoln Town Clerk Files 7402: 132/59 Minutes of Finance Committee 23/11/1950, p. 112). In March 1951 the council’s loan application was successful; it was to be repaid within 80 years (LAO Lincoln Town Clerk Files 7402 132/59 5/3/1951; 7402 132/59 6/3/1951 and 7/3/1951)). Unusually, the City Council’s documentation of the negotiations includes a list of the 52 private tenants that rented plots from Miss Wallis in the late autumn of 1951, each with between 1-4 plots (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 7402 132/59, letters 8/10/1951; 29/10/1951; 14/11/1951).. The privately owned plots were rented at 10s per plot yearly from April. The site was bought for £900, less costs, in February 1952. The Corporation was to ‘erect and at all times maintain a good and substantial fence’ on part of the boundary (Lincoln Town Clerk Files 7402 132/59 13/2/1952). A photograph taken in 1957 shows the site (BKS Air Survey Ltd 1957 air photograph 511743). The site remains in use.

57 Canwick Fen and Canwick Fen A

This large combined site west of the former sewage works was originally privately operated, and is shown as allotments on the OS 1904-5 map revision. It was one of the very first sites to be operated by the City Council, and 84 plots were let out in 1913, contracting slightly at the eastern end closest to the sewage works by 1920 and again by the 1930s (LAO Lincoln City Council Files 7312). A further 28 plots were provided on the rubbish tip area beside the ‘destructor’ in 1934 (SHAC 5/2/32 & 4/5/34). Another 20 plots were provided in 1937 (SHAC 15/2/37). The records imply that this allotment site was partially requistioned and reclaimed with landfill material to raise the ground level, before being returned to allotment use. Air photographs from 1944 and 1946 show most of the area under allotments, but by 1957 the oldest section had probably been abandoned. This site was still open in February 1958.

58 South Park/St Andrew’s/Pate’s Field/Sincil Bank

These adjoining sites are difficult to distinguish in the documentation.

58a Sincil Bank

The ‘Sincil Bank’ name was used to refer to a block of allotments to the east of the Sincil Drain, north of South Park in 1917 when the council let 17 plots at Sincil Bank. By March 1988 only 15 plots remained on the 1.094 acre site. In the late 1990s, pupils and staff at Queen’s Park School created an allotment garden on the Sincil Bank site, designed for use by wheelchair gardeners and others with disabilities from the school.

58b St Andrew’s

The St Andrew’s site, to the south of the former railway ‘avoiding line’, and west of the underpass from St Andrew’s Street, extended south to the railway line north of South Park Road. It was operated by the City Council from 1917, when it comprised 45 plots. In 1961 there were proposals to build a fire station beside South Park Avenue, within the allotment site. It was suggested that the wide verges of the new road could be cultivated as replacement plots (SHAC 15/7/61). The plots were eventually taken for the development of a fire and ambulance station in May 1962. Bill Diack, working on the Kingsway site in 2007, spoke of an acquaintance picking apples from a tree which was thought to have stood on a lost part of the allotment site. An apple tree can be seen growing to the south of South Park Avenue, beside the bridge across the disused railway cutting.

58c South Park

This could represent the 2.191 acre field and an adjacent 0.809 acre block beside the tennis courts, which were rented by Colonel Swan as South Park in 1933 (SHAC 13/10/33). In January 1943, the council was to rent a field adjacent to the Lincoln City Football Club ground for use as allotments (SHAC 15/1/43). The site was to have 33 plots laid out, with an existing pond filled in and the horse trough was to be purchased for use by tenants. It seems that the landowner who rented the land had previously sold a small part to the football club, and after the war they wished to develop it (BAHA April 1943; SHAC 6/10/43 & SHAC special meeting 9/9/49). Damage to the allotments was caused in 1953 by people searching for tennis balls which had strayed from the LCFC tennis courts (FED Dec 1953). The minutes show that the ‘tennis court’ plots were still in use in October 1956 (FED Oct 1956).

58d Pate’s Field

The 5 acre Pate’s Field allotment site is mentioned only once, in July 1946 (FED July 1946). Notice had been given that the field was to be required back in 1949, with plotholders moving to Kingsway, Moses' fields and to the east side of Washingborough Road.

The only clue to the whereabouts of the site is a 1940 map marking a field north of the railway at South Park, owned by Col. Swan and tenanted by W.H.Pate; it was not allotments at that time. However, the land is shown as under allotments on the 1946 air photograph. Maurice Hodson has advised that the field lay to the south of St Andrew's Institute, with a pond at its northern end - this equates to OS Plot 437, 4.697 acres. Maurice recalls that it was under grass immediately before World War II but allotments after the war started.

59 Peel Street

The 0.8 acre Peel Street allotments were on land owned by British Rail. In 1941 the council rented an unknown number out for £2 per year (SHAC 13/6/41). They are visible on a 1946 air photograph. The council kept possession of the 11 plots until 1960 (SHAC 5/3/1959 and 23/2/1960).

60 Kingsway

The Kingsway allotment site, to the south of the former railway embankment, was provided by the City Council from 1917, with 23 plots. Part is shown on the 1930s revision but a larger area is visible on 1946 and 1947 air photographs. The site was very close to the St Andrew’s allotment site, separated only from it by a roadway, and the two sites may have become confused in documentation and in recollections (FED Sept 1946). In 1925 the plotholders petitioned for a water supply, but in 1947 they were using a water trough, without charge, to the irritation of allotment holders elsewhere (SHAC 9/9/25). A Canadian parachutist landed on plots behind the Kingsway houses on 27/7/1941 after a mid-air collision with another plane (F. Hurt 1991 Lincoln during the War, pp50-51, recollection by K. Harrison). Five plots remained on the site in March 1988, occupying 0.38 acre. In Spring 2007, a plotholder, Bill Diack, described how he had cultivated on the site since 1985.

61 St Botolph’s Crescent/Henley Street

A resident of Henley Street (which is immediately to the south of the small allotment site) recalled in March 2007 that prior to its use as allotments the land had been a tip, with orchards to the north of the road. It is probable that the tipping was conducted in a deliberate reclamation attempt to raise the ground level close to the river. The tip then became part of a pasture field owned by ‘Gaffer Ward’ at The Reindeer public house on High Street, grazed by horses and used for whippet racing. The field was later sold for housing, and flats were built on the eastern part. Foundations were excavated and laid on the area of the allotment site, but these rapidly sunk in poor ground (supposedly over a weekend), and the development was aborted.

The allotments were first proposed in 1955 and laid out during the year (FED Aug 1955). Lincoln Federation of Allotments minutes record the matter of the proposed 9 plots, 0.6 acre site, which was to cost £260, expressing concern at the ‘great cost for such a small plot’ (FED April 1956). The resident interviewed in 2007 stated that the allotment site was provided after a request from three Henley Street residents, and had originally served as gardens for the houses on Henley Street, providing them with the opportunity for lawns and vegetable areas. The tradition that these plots were treated as extensions of the Henley Street properties is reinforced by the recorded application in 1959 by one resident for permission to erect clothes-line posts on his allotment (SHAC 5/3/1959).

62 [St Botolph’s vicarage]

A March 1912 plan shows four allotment plots between South Park and Normanby House, beside the drive leading to St Botolph’s vicarage. A second plan, with St Andrew’s Senior School garden and the Open Air School marked, depicts two. These may have been privately let allotments. In August 1919 a letter announced that the school’s playground area (presumably the Senior School) was to have redundant army huts erected on it as school buildings (LAO Lincoln City Education File Cupboard 6 /825: allotments on school sites 1919 – 1934, 30/8/1919). Allotment plots, including a plot beside ‘the fairground field’ were needed in order to provide replacement teaching space. A six month notice period was given but replacement plots ‘on South Park near the Open Air School’ were offered to the allotment tenants. Initially, the school seems to have used the plots as gardens for 42 boys at the school, but in December 1920 the school buildings extended onto other plots.

63 South Common

The Great Northern Railway offered the Lincoln Corporation 4,416 sq yds of land in the Malandry Closes to the south of the railway line at the northern edge of the South Common in 1913, for £540. Freemen of the city, with rights of common on the adjacent land, objected to the purchase and it remained in GNR hands (LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 23). In July 1943 the Lindsey War Agricultural Executive Committee asked the council to consider ploughing part of the South Common as allotments (Lincoln Corporation Housing and Estates Committee Minutes, 9/7/43). The Council responded that they were not prepared to plough any portion of the common, but within a year, they had rented the 1.247 acre site (SHAC 14/7/44). The tenancy agreement had not even been completed before the ground was ploughed ready for allotment use with 17 plots staked out before the end of 1944 (SHAC 20/10/44). Cattle grazing on the common broke into and damaged the allotment area in 1946 (BAHA 3/6/46).

The Malandry, or Hospital of the Holy Innocents, was a leper hospital which was in use in the early twelfth century. Limestone rubble has been found by archaeologist Barry Whitworth on his plot, and this may represent the foundations of a medieval boundary wall. A few sherds of medieval pottery from the same plot could mark the positions of medieval rubbish pits.

64a Canwick Hill

Allotments were shown beside Canwick Hill on the 1904 OS map revision. The earliest of the Canwick Hill allotment sites to be operated by the City Council was immediately south of South Common and the city boundary. The 19.97 acre had 64 plots when it was first let in 1918. It is shown on the 1920 and 1930s map revisions.

64b Canwick Hill extension

The City Council provided an additional 129 plots on the 24.554 acre field to the south from 1919. Tenants were offered two wells, with pumps, for £120 in 1926 (SHAC 15/3/26). Ninety plot-holders responded to the suggestion, but only 29 agreed. During the Second World War councillors contemplated the idea of their own staff ploughing and cultivating the plots if no tenants could be found for the unpopular plots (SHAC 17/10/41). By March 1988 the 12.11 acre site had 95 plots. Only the southern part, on land owned by Jesus College, Oxford, now remains in allotment use, managed by the Canwick Hill Allotment Society.

64c Canwick Hill [further extension]

A 27.961 acre site belonging to CC Sibthorp was rented by the City Council in 1922 and 216 plots were let. That particular venture appears to have be unsuccessful, as in July 1925 only 80 of the plots were let (SHAC 27/2/25). The landowner objected to the City Council about their failure to maintain the land as stipulated in their agreement and in response the council issued notice to quit to some of the isolated plotholders, retaining 12 acres as allotments (SHAC 17/7/25 & 9/9/25). T he following January the situation had not improved and the council considered vacating the remainder of the site (SHAC 27/1/26). In July 1927 CC Sibthorp was paid £135 6s 3d as compensation (SHAC 15/7/27). As the site was in use by the council only between map revisions, it may explain why it does not feature on the maps.

65 Canwick Hill [east]

This 6.336 acre site north of Heighington Road was active in 1904 and still existed in the 1920s.

66a Bracebridge Gas Works/Urban Street

This site faced the early gas works to the north of Urban Street from the eastern side of the railway line, with access via a railway crossing at the eastern end of Urban Street. The site was marked as allotments on the 1920 OS map revision, but subsequently became the replacement gasworks after 1932. Unspecified damage was done to allotments during the construction of a new gasholder in 1932 and £10 11/5d compensation was paid by the gas undertaking (SHAC 6/5/32). The allotments can be seen on a June 1933 photograph in the Lincolnshire Illustrations Index (LCL 3341).

66b Urban Street

The council paid F.T. Tanqueray £4 per acre for 1.5 acre of land on the eastern edge of the Gasworks allotments in the winter of 1922-23 and let out twelve plots at 16s. These were probably the Urban Street allotments mentioned in 1940 (SHAC 22/1/23, 22/5/23 & 4/2/38).

67 & 68 Victoria Street, Bracebridge (incl Bracebridge Heath)

Part of the site at the east end of Victoria Street was allotments on the OS 1904 map revision. These probably represent the 66 plots in Bracebridge UDC transferred into the City in 1921. Documentation dates from November 1922 when it comprised a 8.18 acre site belonging to CC Sibthorp (Lincoln Corporation Finance, Expenditure and General Purposes Committee minutes, 26.10.1922). Although it had been allotments, it seems that in 1922 it had a single tenant. The council entered into negotiations to rent the land and operate the site as allotments, and in May 1923 60 plots had been staked out (at 12s 6d per plot) (SHAC 22/1/23 & 22/5/23). Mrs Oram has recounted that livestock were kept on the site. Many plots were vacant in August 1955, and only 18 remained in 1988.

69 [Brant Road east] (no name known)

These allotments to the east of Brant Road were marked on the OS map revisions of 1904, 1920 and the 1930s, and were allotments owned by the Lincoln Brick Company in 1940. They may have been the allotments on Brant Road which were earmarked as ‘statutory’ plots in 1959, for which an application for housing development was refused (SHAC 5/3/1959).

70 Bracebridge Brickyard

This site is suspected to be the block of allotments marked on the OS 1904 map revision east of Brant Road south of the access to the brickworks. Allotments associated with the Bracebridge brickyard, and owned by that company, were documented in September 1948. It was suggested that the council could buy these 40 plots, on a 10 acre site, as ‘permanent’ allotments. In 1962 the plots were still owned by the company and plotholders were complaining of a rat infestation.

71 Newport /St John’s Road

A site with twelve plots was provided by the City Council in 1917-18, but it had halved in size within a year. They were still in use in early 1934 but their water supply had been removed (SHAC 9/2/34). In 1951 six plots were to be taken for construction of the Blenkin church hall.

......................................................................................................................................

(Sites additional to published map)

72 Monk's Road - Arboretum

Lincoln's Allotments: A History (2008) noted that there was a single reference to a World War II demonstration allotment plot at the arboretum, but that no further information had been found. Immediately after its publication, local historian Fred Hurt wrote and provided a sketch plot of the position of the single sample allotment, below the terrace and slightly to the west of the steps leading up from in front of the lion statue. Mr Hurt's father was head gardener of the arboretum and they lived at Arboretum Top Lodge for 15 years including during the war. As head gardener, he had set out the demonstration plot, and the family printed out instruction sheets on their father's printer. Tree onions were grown, with lettuces between the potatoes.

73 Stonefield Avenue

A block of allotments are marked on the OS 1948 partial revision 1:2,500 map, to the east of Stonefield Avenue. These are not marked on other maps.

74 Cowpaddle

In 1972 consideration was given by the council to the creation of a 3 acre site on the cow Paddle, between Canwick Road and the railway loop line, to serve Canwick Road residents (The Lincoln Commons Draft Plan and Consultative Document 1972, 15). THis may relate to OS Plot 420 (3.18 acres) to the east of the Chaplin Arms Inn. THe site may not ever have been created.

Unlocated [Brant Road west]

An 18 acre site west of Brant Road was earmarked as ‘statutory’ allotment plots in the 1959 City Development Plan, but was designated residential land the next year.

Unlocated Moses’ Fields

The site is only known from a single reference in July 1946.

Unlocated Washingborough Road

The site is only known from a single reference in July 1946 when plotholders from Pates Field were to be transferred to the ‘east side of Washingborough Road’.

Unlocated Newport Cemetery (see 71)

A one acre site beside the cemetery was provided for allotment use in 1941. It was divided into ten plots and was intended to remain in use during the Second World War (SHAC 13/6/41). This could represent land to the south of Blenkin Hall, which had been constructed within a 1.688 acre plot.

Unlocated Wragby Road

In 1935 the vicar of Nettleham offered to sell 160 acres of land beside Wragby Road to the City Council for allotments. It may have been land outside the city boundary on Bunkers Hill close to Glebe Farm, Nettleham. The offer was not accepted.

Unlocated Doddington Road

The City Council was awarded a loan in March 1951 to purchase 14 acres of land for allotments at Doddington Road, as allowed in the Allotments Act 1908-1950. The money was to be repaid to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning within 80 years (LAO City Clerks Files 7402 132/59, 6/3/1951, and 7/3/1951). No further mention of this site has come to light.

Unlocated Skellingthorpe Road/Mr Hill’s Field/Boultham Roman Catholic Church

The site, thought to have been east of Skellingthorpe Road, and north of Boultham Park Road, has only been identified from a mention in the web page of SS Peter and Paul Church, Skellingthorpe which recalls ‘On the right of the hut, the site of the present church, allotments were still being worked as we came to Mass in the early 1950s’ . Boultham Allotment Holders’ Association minutes from 1943 report damage from horses and dogs and problems with trespassing and rubbish tipping in 1945 on a site beside Skellingthorpe Road (SHAC 30/8/43; BAHA 7/5/45 & 27/8/45). The ownership of that allotment field changed in the autumn of 1945 and development as a housing site was anticipated (BAHA 3/12/45). Subsequently it was known as Mr Hill’s field; the last mention is from November 1946 when new tenancy agreements were expected (FED July 1946; SHAC 4/10/46). The web page states that the land was bought by Canon Croft in 1916 and remained in church hands after that. In 1951 a council report recorded 8 plots on this privately owned 0.8 acre site.

Sources:

North Lincoln Horticultural Society Archive

NLHS minute books

West End Allotment Association minute book

Lincoln Federation of Allotments minute book 15.2/1946-23/1980 (some water damage)

Boultham Gardeners and Allotment Holders' Association Archive

Boultham Gardeners and Allotment Holders' Association minute book

Lincoln Central Library

The Lincoln Central Library Local Studies Collection contains a large red-bound book of Ordnance Survey maps. One set is at 1:2500 scale, with OS Plot Nos. and acreages. The plan is dated 1904, partly revised 1911-12, indicating that the printed map features might date from 1911-12 but are more probably 1904, while any of the red ink annotations on the map must be later than 1912. Several refer to the heirs of Col. Ruston (died 1939), and the map is referred to in this Gazetteer as a 1940 revision. These useful source was erroneously dated to 1938 when the History and Gazetteer/Supplement were produced in 2008.

Lincoln Corporation and City Council minutes

city guidebooks

files of newspaper cuttings

‘unpublished pamphlets’

Abstract of the audited accounts of the Lincoln Corporation and the overseers of the Parish of Lincoln 1916-1922

Brown, J. 2005 Farming in Lincolnshire 1850-1945

Boultham Urban District Council Statement re. allotments committee and allotments

CSYR Annual Reports of the City Engineer and Surveyor (Parks and Cemeteries Committee) 1917-23

Haynes, W. 1954 History of Ruston and Hornsby Ltd.

Homeland Official Guide to Lincoln c1920

Hudson, T. Greetwell Ironstone Quarries & Mines: a short history.

Hurt, F. 1991 Lincoln during the War

Hurt, F., and Barratt, J. 1997 Lincoln War Diaries.

Magpie Annual 1940

Newman, B. 1957 100 Years of Good Company.

Newscuttings Vol. A ‘My Hobby – Privileged Peeps in Lincoln No. 32: The lure of the allotment (Lincoln Central Library)

Press cuttings folder (Lincoln Central Library)

Royal Commission on Agriculture in England: Report by Mr Wilson Fox of the County of Lincolnshire 1895

Ruddock J.W. and Sons Directory of Lincoln 1897

Scrapbook of J.G. Williams, Mayor of Lincoln 1899-1900. (Lincoln Central Library)

Searby, P. 1968 “Great Dodford and the later history of the Chartist Land Scheme” Agricultural History Review 16 pt1.

Tonks, E. 1991 'Ironstone Quarries of the Midlands: Part VIII: South Lincolnshire' 1991

The Lincolnshire Illustrations Index

Lincolnshire Echo, including Lincolnshire Echo 27/3/1985; 4/12/1990; 19/10/2005

Lincoln Corporation Act 1915

Lincoln City Commons Act 1870

Lincoln History and Archaeology 18 1983

Lincoln Leader 5/8/1916

Lincoln Official Guide c1951

Lincoln Review 18/2/1922; 9/9/1922; 9/12/22 & 26/8/22; 15/4/1922

Lincolnshire Chronicle 6/1/1917; 27/3/1920; 26/1/1918; 27/1/1917; 4/4/1931; 15/8/1931; 22/8/1931; 30/7/1932

Lincolnshire Chronicle and Leader Silver Jubilee Souvenir 1935 6/5/1935

Lincolnshire Chronicle and Leader ‘Random Recollections’ Supplement, April 1933;

Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury 1/9/1871 p5c1; 13/3/1874 p 4 c6; 15/7/1881p5 c2

Lincolnshire Archives

The Lincolnshire Archives catalogues for public bodies.

LAO 4/MARTIN/2/12/1&2: Swanpool Allotments (Lincs Archives)

LAO LLBS 2/6a Hykeham Road 1908 (Lincs Archives)

LAO LLBS 2/66 Sincil Bank 1911 (Lincs Archives)

LAO LLBS 2/8 Yarborough Road 1901 (Lincs Archives)

LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 23: Great Northern Railway, South Park

LAO Lincoln St Giles Par 22/1-3: Scrapbook and show ephemera

LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 7312: Canwick Fen

LAO Canwick Par 23/19: Plan of gardens adjoining the Sibthorp Estate

LAO Lincoln City Education File (LCC) Cupboard 6 /825: allotments on school sites 1919 – 1934 (Lincs Archives)

LAO Lincoln City Education File /2/1/8: Church Drive, Boultham (Lincs Archives)

LAO Lincoln City Education File 2/2/1939 Yarborough Road (Lincs Archives)

LAO Lincoln City Education File 1145 Grants for classes 1933-1944 (Lincs Archives)

LAO SR/617/4/1: St Faith’s School, Lincoln conveyance 1982 (Lincs Archives)

LAO MON/25/13/2/11/8-9: Lincoln Horticultural Society byelaws 1865 (Lincs Archives)

LAO THOR/13/4/74: leaflet re. poultry (Lincs Archives)

LAO HP [Hebb's Papers] Box 29: Lincoln City 1899-1907 various committees

LAO HP Box 108: Lincoln City Council allotments

LAO HP Box 31: Lincoln City Finance committee papers 1912-1920

LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 30 & 31: Brown’s Closes, Lincoln

LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 189: allotments, Long Leys Road

LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 7402: allotments, Hykeham Road

LAO Lincoln City Town Clerk Files 198: 1917 Cultivation of Lands Order; Lindsey War Agricultural Executive Committee: Schedule of lands within the County of Lincoln 1/2/1918

LAO Pennells

City of Lincoln Council (City Hall)

The Lincoln City Council minutes of the various committees, including Smallholdings and Allotments Committee, and the Recreation, Leisure & Tourism (Recreation and Leisure) Sub Committee

1946 and 1948 RAF air photographs, and others of 1957

Lucas, M. 1999 A Bit of History

Air photographs

a) RAF verticals at the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record

5401 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

5402 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

5404 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

5429 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

5451 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

5452 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

5499 3G/TUD/UK 197 Pt VI 10/5/1946 139 Sqn

3047 CPE UK 2541 25/3/1948 541 Sqn

4047 CPE UK 2541 25/3/1948 541 Sqn

4164 CPE UK 2541 25/3/1948 541 Sqn

b) Huntings Survey Ltd at the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record

HSL Run 95 1848 2/6/1971

HSL Run 97 2/6/1971

HSL Run 99 0076 – 0178 8/7/1971

c) RAF verticals at Lincoln City Hall, Heritage Section

22220 24/1/1944 RAF No.1 Camoflage Unit

20762 24/1/1944 RAF No.1 Camoflage Unit

0037 CPE UK 30/9/1947

0053 CPE UK 30/9/1947

0063 CPE UK 30/9/1947

d) BKS Air Survey Ltd at Lincoln City Hall, Heritage Section

511743 1957

511745 1957

511766 1957

512029 1957

512031 1957

512254 1957

512331 1957

512356 1957

512358 1957

Images

Lincoln Savings Bank and Lincoln Trustee Savings Bank books, North Lincoln Horticultural Society Account, 30/11/1935-31/10/1940; 4/1945- 24/2/1948; 4/4/1950 - 3/12/1953.

Minute book of Lincoln Federation of Allotments (Inaugural meeting 15/2/1946 - AGM 23/1/1980)

Plan of the Mainwaring Allotments: Lincoln City Council Director of estates and industrial Development, dwg. 3017, drawn by MJE & DAH (undated). From original copy in Lincoln Central Library, dated 1976.

Plan of the Yarborough Crescent Allotments: Lincoln City Council, dwg. Es 3028, (undated).

Plan of the Clarence Street B Allotments: Lincoln City Council, Directorate of Economic Development (dated June 1991, but older OS base).

Plan of the Wragby Road Allotments: Lincoln City Council, (undated).

Luftewaffe image of Lincoln, 3/9/1939, showing allotment sites. Reproduced from Newman, B. 1957 100 Years of Good Company.

Proposed allotments at Swanpool (from the Swanpool Cooperative Housing society Prospectus, June 1919.

Council allotment tenancy form, unused (after 1950).

Proposed development of the Boultham Hall Estate (not dated)

Pennell's seed catalogue, with allotment seed collections and winning exhibits from the 1919 Lincoln and District Allotment Holders' Show (reproduced with permission of Mr R. Pennell).

Liquorice Park (Yarborough Road) - a copy of 'A Bit of History', by Dr. Mary Lucas, 1999.

Photos of pages 55-65 of part of Lincoln City Council Town and Country Planning Act 1947: City Engineer's Report of the Survey 1951 - The Analysis, part ii Allotments.

Map by G. Tann showing areas of allotments visible on air photographs HSL Run 99 0076 – 0178 8/7/1971. Hatched areas appear to have been abandoned.

Joiners Arms image - c1920; Robert Carter 3rd from right.

Frank Wheatley (left) with Harry Wheatley and Harry's son Henry.

Sketch provided by Mrs Froggatt showing the position of the LNER allotment plots in the 1920s.