Hungerhill Rd Allotments


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Idly wandering around Nottingham on Google Earth and I found where we had an allotment. It was off St Anns Well Road, some distance up to the left coming from Slab Square direction. They were known in the early '50's as Hungerhill Rd Allotments.

I specifically remember walking up there in late Autumn with a tea chest on a set of pram wheels and frame, where we would fill the chest with apples and pears. We had four or five fruit trees on the allotment which always hads lots of fruit. We used to pass a large fresh produce market on the way back. Vague suspicion they were Sneinton markets, but not sure. Do remember trading with one of the stalls, some of our apples for some of their raspberries. I am sure they did much better out of the deal than we did. Hey we were just kids, but the raspberries were nice, and scoffed in their entirity before we got home. :smile:

The funny bit is, only a few days previous we had collected a tea chest full of coke from the gas works on London Road using the same perambulating tea chest. We wouldn't have cleaned it out afterwards either. The coke was probably sterile.

We used to get "Christmas pears", which, when just picked, were so hard you'd break your teeth trying to bite them. But put them in a bottom drawer for a couple of months and by Christmas they would be perfect. When we had the allotment was one of the few occasions as a kid when we weren't always hungry.

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Hi alisoncc,My granddad also had a allotment in the 40s and 50s and 60s up St Anns well road it was probably the same place as you speak off,he grew allsorts of veg and flowers but i remember all the fruit, he would push his barrow daily from Vicarage st off Alfred st North filled with his goodies,by the time he got home he would have given most of his daily pickings away to folk he passed.we too had drawers and boxes under the bed full of rippening fruit,with lots of little bites in them of course none of us owned up,some made it to Christmas but not many.If only the fruit and veg tasted as good today as Granddads did to us back then in my childhood.

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my dad used to shear several allotment around the city with friends one at sneinton and one at hungerhill were he grew his prize winning flowers mainly dalias and chrisants just so he could enter them in there shows as well as the netherfield allotments he had three in three different places he nearly always walked away with one of the first 3 place winners rosettes he also grew all our own veg except potatoes as he could never grow enough to keep us in spuds all year round with 8 of s plus friends mum would often feed and robert the downs boy my mum used to look afterevery day

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Where did this "St Ann's Allotments" bit come from? They were Hungerhill Rd allotments when I was a regular visitor, sixty years ago. Yup. Checked with me relies, we first got ours late 1952, when I was nearly nine. Just measured it, it was fair hop to our place - 3kms, pushing a barrow full of fresh produce, and I were oldest at 9.

Me Dad used to grow all sorts of things. First time I ever tasted loganberries, and fresh baby runner beans picked off the vine and straight into mouth. Tried growing taties, reckon he would have needed five allotments to keep up with the way we got through spuds.

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my friends who live on blue bellhill rd have four allottments up on the hungerhill rd site

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I was once given some "Christmas pears" (Williams ?) for helping out on one of the Aspley Lane allotments. Mum was quite pleased and put them away in a bedroom drawer to ripen, then had a 'senior moment' when she put some mothballs in the same drawer. She was nearly weeping when she found them beautiful to look at but Oh the smell!

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  • 3 months later...

Hi

the Hungerhill allotments went from Hungerhill Rd to Sycamore Rd and the St Ann's allotments as far as I can recall were on Coppice Rd. My father and grand father used to both have an allotment there. My father used to grow Roses for St Ann's Rose show which was held at the Liberal Club on St Ann's Well Rd. I spent most of my school holidays on the allotment. My father used to grow veg/fruit but the best thing was we had a peach tree each year we waited for it to fruit, finely it gave us one peach.

mary1947

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  • 8 months later...

My Dad had allotments not far from the Ransom Rd Rec. You got into them through a locked gate about opposite one of the Lodges at an entrance to the Mental Hospital.

In the 1950s down towards the allotments at the Hungerhill Road end there was a natural spring that ran through about four adjacent allotments, along the stream there were shallow beds where some enterprising people had cultivated water cress. Some old blokes gardening nearby told us kids that this was the original St. Annes Well.

We spent all our spring and summer holidays there messing about. We would sleep over in the garden sheds, lots of people did the little huts/sheds were constructed of brick and timber like small chalets and had all kinds of ingenious things built into them such as beds that folded away etc. the kinds of things you see in caravans.

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  • 2 months later...

Anyone know anything about an old cinema or church hall that I noticed the other day at the bottom of Ransom Road?

It is opposite Cromer Road I think and boarded up.......... next to a shop.

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I ought to know,back in the 80s i had alot of dealings with the Flint family at the shop next door,but can't remember if it was even in use then.

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Police station other side of 'Flints' shop,and was in the 80s,might have been though.

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  • 4 weeks later...

THE HUNGERHILLS REMEMBERED!

The bountiful Cherry tree stood over there, a tad to the left of the Comis pear. A gooseberry bush to the right of the shed, and a bit further on, the strawberry bed. Peas and beans climb the strong green net and promise to be the best yield yet. A Bramley apple provides the shade, for the pram in which baby Sandra's laid.

Mam stands beneath the russet tree, hands down an apple to Eileen and me. I sink my teeth in the rusty skin and juice runs freely down my chin. My dad and brother Mick have slaved under the hot sun they have braved.

With sleeves rolled up, they've tilled the soil, it’s a labour of love to them not toil.

Dad's planted cabbages, spuds and beet, careless of the mid day heat.

Stopping only to mop at his face, before resuming his dogged pace. Mam calls to him to down his spade and come and eat the food she's made

sandwiches of salmon and 'cumber, soon baby Sandra wakes from slumber.

Changing her for the fourth time that day, once she’s been fed the breast’s put away,

wholly content, we'll not hear a peep don't know why they had her, she's always asleep. At the edge of the beck, we drop to our knees, lifting hot face to the water cooled breeze.

Cupping our hands we drink from the brook, while mam settles down with a fag and a book.

In the distance we hear the howl of a dog, from the opposite bank, the croak of a frog. This place has a peace we don't want to break, so we cut down our noise for reverence sake.

Too soon dad turns from friend to foe, calling to us to get ready to go locking the gate with the familiar rattle, we head for home and our daily battle.

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sounds like a lovely time you had up in the allotments . i too sometimes went to the allotments with my dad and can remember the shed on the allotment a drop down bench bed a wood /coal stove a shelf for cups /mugs usually enamel mugs and plates . that also broke down against the wall.plates and cups on a higher narrower self after use . i liked to play house in there with some of the local girls nice place to sit and read too specially when the stove was lit when it was cold and damp. i used to pinch a few of dads sweet peas and put them in a jam jar on the wide shelf . they smelt lovely. but we could only pick certan ones,

dad showed flowers inclouding sweet peas .

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