All change down on the allotment: York’s allotment gardens and urban transition

Summary

This paper assesses the development of the allotment gardens in the northern English city of York to demonstrate the processes of urban transition on a scale and on sites which are often overlooked in studies of city life. From the pressures of political reform, social change and environmental concerns, the allotment gardens in the city reflect local, national and international concerns from their origins in the early twentieth century to the present day. Through an assessment of archival documents, newspapers and oral testimonies, this analysis will highlight how the individual biographies of both allotment sites and allotment tenants can be used to understand how changing perceptions can be read into the urban landscape. These biographies demonstrate how forces of change were accommodated, negotiated and resisted on the allotment gardens in the city and how an archaeology of allotments reveals the dynamism within a neglected aspect of provincial urbanism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In the City: archaeology and the personal experience of urban transition   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 274