 |
Our site was originally part of Finchley Common – a big area of common land with grazing animals, highwaymen and things. In 1811, Parliament passed an Act of Enclosure ordering the open land to be fenced and parcelled out to individual owners – mostly the big local landowners. Our site became meadows, probably owned by the Bishop of London and seems to have passed subsequently to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
We have no more records until 1919. Martin School had been built and allotments already filled two-thirds of the site. The remainder was a field running up to Coldfall Woods and we have plans drawn up in 1919 to lay this out as allotments too. Our oldest allotment holder who sadly died recently remembered as a child seeing horses out in the meadow by the woods before it was turned into allotments.
In 1922 it seems that allotment holders here rented their plots direct from the local council. The allotment holders decided that year to set up our present Association as a limited company and to take a lease on the site from Finchley Urban District Council – a predecessor of Barnet Council – which in turn appears to have leased the land from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Council acquired the freehold in 1930 and, through a series of leases, our Association has occupied the site ever since.
Please view the maps below starting in 1786, click on the image for a larger view.
Click on images for full size
|
