For those of you who have an allotment on the Stonepit Coppice (part of the Chamberlain Estate within St. Ann’s Allotments) a very happy 150th anniversary.
On the 27 November 1874 the Nottinghamshire Guardian published an extract from the Annual Report of the Nottingham Town Council Chamber Committee, and its creation of 200 plus new gardens:
COPPICE – In accordance with the report and recommendation of Mr Thomas Huskinson, your Committee consider it desirable that a portion of the Coppice Farm should be converted into gardens; they therefore caused two fields known as the Stone Pit Coppice and the Third Coppice, containing together 22a. 3r. 16p. and letting at an agricultural rental of about £3 an acre, to be laid out and to be formed into garden allotments, and let to yearly tenants at the rent of three farthings per yard, per annum. These gardens, upwards of 200 in number, have been let, and will produce an annual rental of about £306. The total cost of laying out, fencing, and forming the roads and avenues to these new gardens is estimated to be about £950. It will thus be seen that this work and consequent expenditure have been highly advantageous to the Estate, inasmuch as an additional rental of £237 per annum will be obtained for the land.
Nearly two years later a visitor from the Gardener’s Magazine to the extended Hungerhill Gardens noticed the difference in the historic growth of the original gardens compared with those newly created at Stonepit Coppice.
…As we pass along the roads through the allotments, it is impossible to catch a glimpse of the contents of the gardens, for they are enclosed with hedges of quick and privet, varying from six to eight feet in height. But the hedges enclosing gardens approached by the roadways to the left, are not so high by two feet or so, and as we proceed onwards, still bearing to the left, we come to some hundreds of plots enclosed with hedges not more than two feet in height…
…. The gardens referred to above as having hedges only two feet or so in height are on the side of the hill furthest from St. Ann’s Well- Road, and form part of a tract of ground broken up some few years since to meet the ever-increasing demand for gardens. These are mostly furnished with glass and other erections, but they lack the pleasing appearance presented by those of older date for, as yet the apple and other fruit trees have not attained a sufficient size to form conspicuous objects. (Nottinghamshire Guardian – 18 August 1876)
For the gardeners on Stonepit Coppice, including the STAA staff and volunteers working at the Nursery and Urban Nature, they will be aware that those two feet tall hedgerows are now at “six to eight feet in height”. Interestingly they will also acknowledge that many of the original fruit trees have “attained sufficient size to form conspicuous objects”, not only continuing to provide fruit but also supporting an important City area of biodiversity during the past 150 years.
