The house where I lived for a time as a child in Newcastle-on-Tyne had previously been owned by the man who designed the plumbing for some of the great liners produced in the shipyards. The bathrooms in our home boasted a great deal of marble, six lavatories, eight washbasins and three capacious baths. However, the garden, though large, was very dull, comprising a lawn, herbaceous borders and one quince tree. I was always drawn to the allotments that lay on the edge of the Town Moor. I loved the higgledy piggledy, yet ordered randomness of the small plots, where rows of vegetables formed a vibrant quilt of colour, under fruit trees and bushes. Alas, the gates were kept locked and I did not possess a key that would admit me to that paradise.
For centuries past, London – and other great cities – contained areas where ordinary citizens were able to cultivate a plot of land. As late as the nineteenth century, fig trees grew by the Thames opposite Cleopatra's Needle. Apple trees flourished there and wine was made from the grapes that grew in St Martin's Lane. It is said that in 1866, one gardener remembered a time when '13,000 acres of vegetables and fruit trees' flourished within four miles of Charing Cross.
The Allotment movement in England began sometime in the eighteenth century after the creation of 'Enclosures' had seriously affected the lives of the poor, who lost many of their rights to use of common land. It was then that fallow land began to be offered to labourers so that they could cultivate potato crops. Access to these 'allotments' greatly improved the lives of many of the rural poor. Alas, potatoes, which were the main crop of most allotments, were subject to potato blight and during the 1840s many allotment holders were in arrears with their rent after the crops failed. Often, other produce such as turnips, proved more reliable.
However, through much of the nineteenth century, potatoes remained the most popular and valued of crops. Pigs, regarded as the poor man's best friend, were often used as manure-producing machines. Apart from a passing cat, or the occasional fox family, animals are not generally to be found on most of today's urban allotments.
For me, today, one of the great pleasures in life is to visit my allotment down by the Overground railway line in north London. My small plot lies beside the main gate, which means that I am passed by everyone en route to his or her own patch. I have discovered that allotmenteers are generous in offering advice on how to improve the soil, sow seeds and prune plants, and often, with gifts of produce from their own, much superior allotments. The annual rent for my half-size plot is a mere £30. Each person is held responsible for the care and upkeep of his or her own plot. Within the bounds of this stipulation there is plenty of scope for imaginative planting.
At Harvest Festival time we rent an upstairs room at a local pub, where our produce is skilfully incorporated into the menu on offer, and though the fare sometimes consists of some rather tough vegetable matter, nobody complains.
Cicely Herbert is one of the trio who founded and continue to run Poems on the Underground (now spread from London to many other cities worldwide). In Hospital, her poetry collection (with the Victorian poet W. E. Henley), was published by Katabasis in 1992.