If someone invites you to share a beer “down from allowance,” accept. You will see a kind of British urban gardening that has a long history but could well disappear in the next few decades. Fans of Eastenders, the old Ealing comedies, or other common working-class British dramas in the 20th century have probably seen some old gunman tending a small vegetable garden or having a pinch of homebrew in a somewhat secluded garden shed. from your home or your normal home. surroundings.
A dialogue exchange could look something like this:
Where is Arthur? I haven’t seen him all day.
Oh, he’s working on the assignment.
In everyday English, an assignment just means a measured part of something. But in British English, the word assignment has a specific meaning with historical resonance.
Your own temporary piece of Britain
Allotments are small plots of land that are rented out to local people so they can grow their own fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The history of allowances dates back to Anglo-Saxon times and is still measured in the Anglo-Saxon measure of bars or poles . An allotment of 10 bars or posts is approximately 250 square meters or 300 square yards.
The land may be owned by the local council, ecclesiastical authorities, or adjudication associations, or it may be owned by a private owner. Annual rent can be as little as £ 8 per year to about £ 125 and most leases are held for a long time.
The origin of the assignments
The idea dates back to the Middle Ages, when most villages had common lands where the local poor could graze animals or grow small crops for their own subsistence needs. In the 1500s, this common land began to be fenced off by private owners. Little by little, as more and more land was closed and society became more industrialized, people moved to cities and towns and the problems of the urban poor multiplied.
In the 19th century, an attempt to address this problem was the provision of worker huts with backyards large enough to grow a private supply of food. In fact, on the edges of some cities, you can still find small terraced cottages with remarkably huge backyards, a holdover from those days.
In the mid-19th century, in the absence of any kind of welfare state and the growing problem of urban poverty and malnutrition, a series of laws were passed requiring local authorities to hold land for allotments.
Digging for Victory
For Victorian benefactors, allowances were a way for charitable benefactors who considered the “idle poor” to make productive use of their time away from pubs and “demonic drinking.” Later, during World War I, when German blockades caused severe shortages, assignments became popular out of necessity. And, at the end of World War I, allowances were made for the “working poor” and the returning military.
The allotment movement once again became popular during World War II when a campaign known as Digging for Victory encouraged everyone to grow food to feed themselves and the nation.
Assignments today
If you travel around Great Britain by train, you will often see fields divided into parcels along the rail route. They look like little truck farms, often with rickety sheds, greenhouses, or even little trailers. At the height of the adjudication movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, railroad companies provided their workers with vacant lot allowances along railroad cuttings and sidings. Many of these remain today and are still in use.
Other allotments, owned or protected by local authorities or the Church of England, can still be found near council properties and on the edges of small towns. Once again, as growing your own produce has become popular, townspeople and city dwellers are joining the waiting lists to grab these small plots of land, which are as rare as the proverbial chicken teeth.
The National Appropriations Society of Great Britain has more on the allowances, their history and their role today. They have fascinating information on all sorts of allotment-related matters, like keeping chickens and hives on allotments, building structures and toilets, and most importantly, mounting pressure from local governments to sell these mini-farms. So instead of providing green lungs for cities and towns, they end up being paved and developed.
And assignments weren’t just a British phenomenon. In the United States, during World War II, they were known as Victory Gardens. You can still visit America’s oldest and last WWII allotments, the Fenway Victory Gardens, a seven-acre parcel in downtown Boston cultivated by 500 individual gardeners.
