Pudding Mill Allotments is a traditional allotment site located in the heart of East London. The delivery of the site was completed in January 2016 and occupation of the site took place shortly afterwards.
The site is owned by the London Legacy Development Corporation, is within the Borough of Newham and is managed by the Manor Gardening Society. The Society has secured a 38 year lease agreement with the Corporation. The site was delivered as a part of the LLDC’s commitment to providing allotments ‘greater in quality and quantity’ than those it removed in 2007 to deliver the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The site comprises 50 individual plots, ranging in size, and covers an area of approximately 1 hectare.
Manor Gardening Society operates like many other allotment associations in the UK – it lets parcels of land to individual Tenants. Each Tenant is responsible for their own plot as a garden for growing vegetables and fruit for consumption by them and their family and friends. The Society broadly manages the site within the auspices of the 1908 and 1950 Allotments Acts – it has a Constitution and Tenant rules.
The Manor Gardening Society has a sister site in Marsh Lane, Waltham Forest.
The Society Management Committee is elected from its membership and acts in the interests of its membership. The Society operates co-operatively – the community of Tenants takes responsibility for the amenity in all ways. The Society is also mindful of its place within the broader local community, and the value of the amenity to those people. The Society is committed to delivering a fair and sustainable allotment site.
Manor Gardening Society was created in the 1920s on a small spit of land between Channelsea River and the tidal River Lea. The Eastway Allotments, Hackney Wick, were created by Major Arthur Villiers, a philanthropic Etonian banker who sought to make provision in the area for the local poor. The site was tenanted by local families and those that worked in local businesses providing exercise, healthy food and a social meeting place for local communities.
The site was the last remaining allotment site in the area in 2007 when the winning of the bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games meant that entire the area had to be vacated. After unsuccessfully arguing to retain the allotments as part of the 2102 Olympic Park, all tenants were evicted in late 2007. Despite being individually compensated by the Authorities at the time Tenants felt bereft at losing this much-loved site, its removal from the landscape being described as ‘an act of vandalism’. The Tenants were keen to move back onto the Olympic Park, thus re-instating the Villiers legacy. The Society was moved to a small temporary site in Marsh Lane Fields a couple of miles away.
The new site at Pudding Mill is occupied by some of the original gardeners from Eastway allotments and was delivered to fulfil the promise made by the Olympic Authorities to return the Society to the Park.