Hi
I am an archaeology student at the University of Sheffield and am currently doing a dissertation about the history of allotments, particularly in the Rivelin Valley area. I was wondering if anybody had any information about the history of these allotments as a lot of information on the subject is not documented and sadly often forgotten.

Any help would be appreciated :)

Many thanks, Kate

I'm sure a lot of us who have plots in that area would be interested in anything you find out as well. We are on the Hagg House site, just up from the Rivelin Valley allotments and I think they were established as allotments either just before or just after the scond World War. Have you tried contacting the allotment office and the Sheffield Allotment Federation, they should have some info between them?

Thanks for the advice, I will get in contact with them :)
One main part of my research is considering the benefits of oral history in discovering undocumented information, so it is still useful to gain any scrap of knowledge from people about the allotments in the past as it may not be documented elsewhere.
I will of course let you know of anything interesting i find out, but currently I've only got as far as mapping out the history of the allotments in the area, and the majority are still there today!

Kate

This sounds really interesting. I have a couple of plots on the Hagg House site which is going through quite a renaissance at the moment. It was all but abandoned a couple of years age but now is full with new tennants. Many of us are very interested in the history of the place so would like to see what you discover. We have a facebook group that may be of interest to you, I will post a message on the board and link it back here.

The Hagg house site was set up in the 1920's poss 1927 when it was converted from farmland. The car park on bole hill road (which is now being rebuilt) was the site of the farm house (hagg house).

I have met a few people who know about the history of the allotments. Got chatting to one bloke down there who was waliking through with his daughter and he had a plot a few on from mine during the 80s and grew veg during the times of high unemployment but left when the vandalism became too bad.

Ivor is a old timer who knows everything about everything regarding the allotments and history of the area, def worth a try! He owns Hobbycraft the hardware shop in crookes (opposite the co-op) and he does like to talk!!

Finally, Richard Clare a.k.a. The Organic Guru http://www.organic-guru.co.uk has been running alloments all over the area for 20 years and is very knowledgable. And I'm sure he would be more than happy to chat.

Good Luck
Matt

Thankyou so much for all that information Matt, its been so helpful, and an extra special thankyou for linking this to the facebook group :)

It sounds like (and looks like from the records ive been through) that the Hagg Hill/ House allotments would be a really good place to look at, so I think I will try and extend the study. Hopefully I'll be able to find out lots of interesting stuff for you as a thankyou for the help, but we shall see!

Thanks again
Kate

I'd second the guru, he told me all about the history of mine on Rivelin.