Allotments

Growing your own vegetables has become more and more popular in recent years. The Town Council has an allotment site at the top of Newhaven Cemetery, which is in a lovely, semi rural location backing on to Bollens Bush. The soil here is chalky – nevertheless some of our allotment holders manage to produce fine crops.
The traditional plot size is 10 rods. A rod is an ancient land measurement of approximately 5m in length. A square rod is about 25 sq m. It is said that a rod was originally defined as the total length of the left feet of the first sixteen men to leave church on Sunday morning. It is also sometimes known as a pole or a perch. In recent years several plots have been divided in half, making them much more manageable and enabling more people from the waiting list to take on an allotment. Nevertheless, there are currently over 30 residents on our waiting list and people joining the list now are likely to have to wait 2 – 3 years for an allotment. Due to the volume of residents requiring an allotment, we have had to close our waiting list for the time being.

There are other allotments in Newhaven – at East Side, also run by the town council (although we are not currently keeping a waiting list), and at South Heighton, run by Glynde Estates, tel: 01273 858224. It is understood that this has a waiting list.