Allotment History
In 1798, in order to benefit from improved farming practices, the landowners of the parish of Keyworth agreed to an Inclosure Act which reordered the previous open field system land holdings. The poor had until then been able to farm strips on the open fields and graze cattle and sheep on the common land. Under the new system the land was split between the larger land owners and the poor were left with nowhere to graze their cattle or grow crops. Out of charity to the poor, under the Keyworth Act, a piece of land was set aside from part of the Church of England's parish holdings to be called the “Poor’s Land.” Anyone from the parish could rent a plot and any money raised was to be used for helping the poor of the parish, a sort of local welfare scheme.
The management of the Poor's Land plots was initially undertaken by the Parish Overseers of the Poor and the Church Wardens. In 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act transferred Poor Law administration to the Bingham Union under which a Board of Guardians replaced the Parish Overseers. A Parish Records entry for 1835 notes that allotment income was £5 of which £2 went to the Parish School and £3 to educating, clothing and feeding six poor children in the parish.
This map is an extract of the post enclosure field layout showing the Poor's Land allotment site in the lower right. The land area was 4 Acres, 1 Rod, 12 Perches in size, running approximately 220 yards from Selby Lane to the Willow Brook stream and being 100 yards wide.
By 1844 the Poor's Land had been laid out into individual garden plots of either 600 or 300 square yards. A 600 yard plot costing five shillings a year to rent was equivalent in size to about four of the current plots.
In 1894 the Church Wardens and Guardians relinquished their control to the newly established Parish Council. The Council elected four councillors as Trustees to take on managing the Poor's Land on its behalf, the first four being Samuel Gunn, Frederick Hodgett, Samuel Armstrong and Thomas Tomlinson. The annual cost of the 600 and 300 square yard plots was set at four and two shillings respectively. Throughout the 20th century the allotments continued to be managed in this way with any money available being given to local charities. By 1969 each plot cost 10 shillings (50p).
In the early 1960s Keyworth became a huge building site and all of the Rector of Keyworth's land on the map above was bought for developing the Wolds Drive or Wimpey Estate. In 1962 it was agreed by the Parish Council and allotment trustees to sell a 1.13 acre section of the allotments site (the 50 metres adjacent to the Willow Brook) to Wimpey for the construction of the houses on Fairway. The proceeds of the sale was put into a charity trust fund with any income received each year to be distributed to charities or good causes in Keyworth.
In recent years the Parish Council no longer seconds councillors to the Allotments committee and it is now run by a management committee of five Trustees.