Agricultural History Review, Volume 51 Part 1 (2003), pp. 95–106

Many acres of the horticultural land surrounding Sheffield in the late eighteenth century were utilized as allotment gardens. Provincial town histories, apart from those of Birmingham (where small gardens were often different in character) make little or no mention of anything similar for this period. This paper makes the case for Sheffield being the first to experience workers’ gardens en masse and demonstrates that there may have been, on a cautious calculation, 1500–1800 allotments available for rent in the town in the 1780s. 

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