“It occupies a place in people’s imaginations way beyond the plot-holders”; Julie Sumner.
Major Arthur Villiers, a director of Barings Bank and enlightened philanthropist, founded his ‘Private Gardening Club’ in the early 1900s to provide allotments for interested locals to grow wholesome food. The members felt secure in the autonomy of their well chosen site because it was managed by its own elected committee. This magical and rather ramshackle place had developed a strongly settled, polyglot and welcoming community by the time it came under threat from the Olympics.