A particularly interesting allotment site locally is the one in Hessle, sited at the bottom of a disused chalk quarry beside Ferriby Road it is interesting to look down and see the, mostly, well-used and valued allotments. This relatively small quarry was the ‘parish quarry’ from which chalk clunch might be taken by the parish authorities for such things as the filling of ruts in un-surfaced parish roads or for hard-core foundation stone. The equivalent parish quarry in Barton, beside Barrow Road and opposite the civil cemetery, now has a small housing estate located there, it must be interesting where some gardenst lead to the base of the surviving quarry cliff sides. The equivalent site in South Ferriby parish is beside the A1077 road to Barton near the top of the scarp slope S bend in the road, it now is the site of a small wood but otherwise is not so obvious as it is not so deep as the others.
It could be argued that allotments were a product of Enclosure Acts in that each parish’s Act allocated relatively small plots of land to villagers who previously had only minimal rights to pasture their animals on the common-land. However, these plots were usually somewhat larger than later allotments proper. In the Enclosure Award for Great Somerford parish in Wiltshire an area of land was allocated to be divided into allotments for the poor, not sufficient for them to subsist off but sufficient to provide meaningful occupation when the tenant was not at work and capable of supplementing his family’s food supply. This was probably the first use of the term allotments as we would recognise it.
(To be continued).